Kampot

Internet service here in Kampot is very weak and therefore it has been awhile since I last posted a blog. So weak that we are unable to transmit all the photos i had been trying to send from the boat trip to PP. Kampot is a three hour drive south of Phnom Penh near the coast. The guest house we are staying in is owned by a friend of Michael's and is actually made up of two good size houses and a couple of other smaller guest houses. Hans owns the guest house we are in and he owns and rents out two smaller houses with rooms. He has a pool, bar and serves food. The other house is owned by their friend Scott where Michael and Hurley are staying. The property is absolutely beautiful right on the Kampot River. http://www.villavedici.com/ We arrived here on Friday afternoon for the weekend. We're leaving today- Monday to go back to Phnom Penh. We were hoping to watch the Pats & Giants games but being 12 hours ahead that put the Pats game at 3am. And the satellite reception is so bad here we were unable to catch the Giants game. What a bummer... Oh well. We have had a great weekend doing two different road trips going out further into the countryside. Michael had rented a car and driver to get us here and to be available to drive us wherever we wanted to head. Saturday we headed up to the top of the mountain, Bokor that we look out at from the guest house. It is about 3,000 feet and is part of a national park. There were some gorgeous vistas of the Gulf of Thailand. Later we hit the market in the town of Kampot and picked up food for our dinner back at Scott's. Yesterday we drove to Kep about an hour drive on the coast where we had crabs and some beers right on the water. I am going to just try and send this short blog without any photos just to explain where we are. We'll be back at out hotel in PP later today where I can send the blog from 4 days ago and send some photos of this past weekend. We continue to be amazed at how undeveloped Cambodia is and how beautiful the farmland, the mountains, the river and coast are. The people are extremely poor and yet you see very little begging especially away from the cities. And we've seen no one sleeping on the street like you would in NYC. Wages are so low. Hans said that in building his guest house the carpenters would be paid $7/day. Laborers are paid $3/day. The maid for the house gets paid $100/month and her father is the gardener / caretaker and he gets about the same. And the weather... OMG a perfect place to spend winter. Mid 80's with a nice breeze. We are about 12 degrees north latitude. That would be pretty far south.

Location:Kampot,Cambodia