Days beginning to melt into one, not even sure whether I have already written a blog today or not …
Of course even here some kind of (lazy) routine starts to settle in – first decission of the day wld be whether to get up already or just stay in bed a little longer, then check the weather and decide where to go for breakfast. Developed a taste for khmer and vietnamese soups, VERY tasty and becoming with a little beef and lots of veggies.
Today I ended up at one of my favorite places in old bridge street. I had hardly ordered my soup when Stefan showed up as well 😉
He had decided to go to Kep only next week, so time for a meal and some high end intellectual barang talk early in the morning (well it was 10:30 alteady …)
We then went to hang out a little at his cinema and when Bart (the boatman) showed up, we decided to go for a ride in his kajak – taking a small sidearm of the big river. We drove out to his really nice khmer style house, got the kayak and pushed off – here are some pics:
We went ashore to watch a khmer couple (smiley as usual) cut the leaves of the harvested palm leaves – the stems are not used for anything, while the leaves serve as building material for thatch roofs, walls etc. By the way, the palms growing here are the only palms which can grow in the brackish water of the river. Actually the water is only brackish during dry season when the nearby sea pushes far up the river.
We walked a little further to a really nice guesthouse, located right between the rivers and the rice fields. Had met the the previous owner who had build it (Dirk- german guy) but recently sold it to a very nice french couple who had only recently came here from romania. Nice to see them both enjoying this project, working as a team.
When we got back to Bart’s place, it was getting dark already and we decided to get dinner in town. On the way through the fields we stopped in a small village and tried some of the home made rice wines at the low key version of a small supermarket. They had 3 pots of different flavours – dont know what they were, but one had chinese medical herbs in it. Recognized the taste and I also believe it’s what the propriotor said 😉
The ‘wine’ was actually quite nice, rather smooth for a schnaps. We then headed to a german owned restaurant and splashed out on a steak – the first one for me since leaving germany over 2 months ago!
Walking home some hours later …
offwe_r 