Road trip to Takeo

Stacey had plans to go to the islands so we returned one of the scooters, said goodbye to her after a last breakfast together and then Amelie and I got on the road. We had just looked to Google Maps and picked out some places in rural areas at random that might be interesting. We planned to find somewhere to stay overnight and come back the next evening to Kampot where our main bags were.

We found a nice little town to stop for a cold drink and walked around a temple and met some monks. Loads of school kids found us fascinating. Next we stopped in the main town in the Takeo province and had a tasty lunch from a little road-side stall, including an amazing smoothie of banana, dragonfruit and jackfruit.

We headed for the nearby lakes and found a small fishing community. This little girl didn't know what to make of us. We were always greeted with smiles and lots of kids shouting "hello".

We drove back in to the town and found a boutique hotel for $7.50 each. It was possibly the nicest hotel room I've had during my travels. We had a rest and then walked in to town in the early evening. By chance there was a Thai festival and market in town. There was a big stage set up, sponsored by Leo, the Thai beer. We bought a beer each and sat watching the live music. A family invited us to their table and gave us more beer and some food. We ate some insects which were actually really tasty and some papaya salad that was packed with chillies. Once that family left, the next table invited us. Other than a few words, they didn't speak English but they were all very lovely. We posed for a few photos and then left to find some food. There were hundreds, possibly a few thousand people and we didn't see a single westerner, so we definitely stood out and were getting a lot of stares.

As we were leaving the festival, we found an outdoor club with lots of young Cambodians dancing. We joined in for a few minutes. It was surreal but brilliant!