Crabs in Kep

Eager to escape the city, our destination were Kampot and Kep; two seaside villages famed for their fresh crabs. From the grapevine, these were Cambodia's up and coming hotspots- one of those get there before it's too late places. After a grand tour of each and every guesthouse, we settled on a friendly irish haunt, complete with crazy golf, pool, table football, communal TV and the friendliest staff imaginable. On the recommendation of our guesthouse manager, we set about on a push bike tour of the slat flats and neigbouring vicinity. Not having learnt from previous experience, we were still without head gear, again underestimating Cambodia's sun, a force that even factor 50 couldn't reckon with. We again continued our policy of blind perseverence, two hours later. we found ourselves at the next town- kep, which we weren't intending on visiting for the next few days. Beautiful though it was, we realised it would be another two hours back and with the both of us already reddening (crimson) we began to consider hitch hiking.
Keen to explore as much as possible of the beautiful landscape, we changed tack and mounting motorbikes took to the bumpiest dirt tracks that frankly our funky city motorbikes just couldn't handle. Not to mention that R's moto was rather temperamental and took to stalling at the most inconvenient of places. We were occupied for days - red soil, lush green grass, blue skies and palm trees reflected in the vast salt flats, local villages, cloud topped mountain peaks and the sea.
Having oogled the photo's of a luxury resort our manager had visited and blostered by our now extensive driving experience (ahem) we set off down the motorway, economically sharing the bike in search of this hidden gem. The infinity pool and jetty, from which Vietnam could be seen, didn't dissappoint. Kampot really was one of those places that you can't help but linger, as a result there was a real expat community, into which we were welcomed and as such we got to know the local hangouts. Epic cafe- amazing banana chutney and porridge...and snagged our first guardian in months. The rusty keyhole, a recently relocated restaurant situated in the owners home- despite being in the middle of the countryside, thanks to it's hospitality was always full.
Forcing ourselves to move on and with time ticking, we got a tuk tuk to Kep where in the midst of some epic negotiations we bumped into the guesthouse manager and girlfriend who like us were destined for the tranquility of rabbit island. Upon arrival we realised it really was a Robinson Crusoe desert island and after a couple of days of not much other than good food and relaxation we headed back to the mainland and on to Sihanoukville.