Hi all,

Left Sihanoukville relatively early and set off down the coast road. Beautiful weather and stunning scenery. Cambodia is mainly flat inland, but around the caost you have tropical mountains and little fishing ports and islands off the coast.

A beautiful 3 hour ride towards Kampot (where lots of pepper comes from)

I did get to the Bokor Hill National Park, but it was a trail dirt road 2 hours up and 2 hours back to get to the station and after 3 hours, I thought this was a bit much. So I pushed on and went past Kampot about 20kms to the little beach resort of Kep.

What a find....such interesting history too. Un der French colonisation, this was "the place" where rich French came from the capital to relax, go to the casinos, beach...a sort of Cannes of Cambodia.... there were beautiful french designed collonial houses hugging the coast around Kep which is basically a prominatory.

Well when the French left the place went a little down market, but when the Khymer Rouge got to power they destroyed the place quite a bit as it sood for everything they didnt. then when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia to out Pol Pot in I think the late 60s, they also took this whole area and looted what little was left. In the 90s the then king, Sihanoukville had a palace constructed here, but then abdocated before it was finished!!!

Sory for the history lesson, but it shows int he photos I have taken, parisien style street lamps...white curving stones, white painted on tree trucks, bush lined streets and of course the burnt out ruins of the colonial house.... the place is now starting to make a comeback.

So got here around 3pm and thought I would pamper myself, so checked into a place called the "Veranda resort". Its a place on the hill overlooking the beach with stunning scenery indeed. It had, I think 10 little bungalows on stilts and all connected by their own raised walking bridges to the main bar and restaurant. So beautiful and total pampering, and all for $20 a night!!

So nice I decided to stay 2 days and let the bike rest a little.

Just chilled the first day, took pictures and went down to the seafront little town and had a fried shrimp and rice meal. Wow 25 almost tiger sized prawns in a hot sauce and all for $2!! Cambodia is so cheap...people who have been to Thailand say its like Thailand 20 years ago. So if your interested, come now before its ruined.

On the second day, Friday, I took a fishing boat out to the island of Koh Tonsay (find it on a map!!) also called Rabbit Island!

All there was were 5 beaches bars with sunbathing areas and hammocks and about 20 little huts which you could stay overnight if you wanted to. In totoal there were about 25 tourists ont he isalnd ding nothing but sumbathing and chilling. It was so good I got my back seriously sunburn! One of the pitfalls to travelling solo is you have no one to put cream on your back!! Asking someone to take a picture of you is one thing, but creaming you up is another!

So a peaceful day and then back to the Veranda.

Check this e-mail address out.. Jay a place for you and Jen!!

www.vernda-resort.com

The only sight downside to the two days is in chatting to a few guests at the hotel, I come accross a couple who live in Midvale Road, St Helier, Jersey - like 3 mins walk from my house! How weird was that! They say the world in a small place and now I believe it. they were lovely people though, then again all people from Jersey are!

Got to bed early as decided for a big bike trip tomorrow....all the way to Siem Reip where the Angkor Wat is...its about 550kms...so a 9 hour ride.....

Missing everyone

Steve