February 6, 2010 – Day 408 – Kep, Cambodia

Swinging in a seaside hammock watching a bright pink and red sunset after a fat crab dinner drowned in Kampot pepper sauce and ice cold Angkor beer…we could get used to this kind of life.

Kampot Pepper Crab

Kep is the epitome of a “sleepy fishing village.” It seems to consist of a few tiny hamlets spread a few kilometers apart and the main part, Kep City, is little more than an uninhabited tiny town. It looks as if Kep is waiting for a large tourism boom in the next 10-15 years and when that happens, the citizens will get out and about. For now, everyone seems to lounge in shelter houses by Kep Beach in one of the rows and rows of hammocks looking out at the sea or just rest under a shade tree on the promenade that runs along the water.

Kep Beach

When we arrived we weren’t sure that we had actually even gotten to Kep. There are guesthouses and a couple restaurants beginning a few kilometers out of “town” and this is about where we were dropped off. We checked 3 places and enjoyed the walk between the guesthouses, relishing the quiet and little amount of traffic. The countryside is very beautiful and green, kind of reminds us of the farmland around Nicaragua.

The backstreets of Kep

We went for dinner down to the Crab Market where a small collection of tiny open air, seaside restuarants serve the freshest crabs slathered in Kampot pepper sauce. To give you an idea of just how fresh the crab was: we were sitting looking out at the sea and watching the crab catchers hard at work when we saw the lady who took our order go buy a bag full of live crabs from one of the catchers just below us!

Fresh crabs being brought in

After dinner we took a walk around town alongside the quiet calm water. There isn’t much to Kep and certainly not much to do but it’s such a beautiful and peaceful place. A nice place to recharge and really relax with the day’s top priority being swinging lazily in a hammock.

A little hammock time