I had not really planned on staying in Kampot for that long, but things just kept popping up that seemed interesting and so I just kept staying.  The hostel had advertised an Rabbit island trip which they did every time there was interest from people.  Ivan had a few friends arriving from Germany and so he wanted to bring them to Rabbit island.  The trip itself seemed pretty fun but they weren’t running it until the next day, which means I had an extra day to kill in Kampot.

The 3 members of our hostel room (nobody had checked into our hostel room since we moved in) decided to head to Kep which offered a national park for hiking and a crab market.  We had a bit of a late start to the day due to the lateness of the night before, but we hit the road by noon and had lunch at a place up on a hill with a pretty nice view.

After lunch we started our hike with no real plan on where we were going.  We went to the “summit” and on the other side of the summit there was another path that we weren’t really sure where it went, so throwing caution to the wind, we decided to follow it.  This particular path was far less traveled and was much more of a jungle trek than a walk through the forest.

We also had no idea where the trail led so it was a nice afternoon adventure.  Eventually the trail let out on the other side of the hill at a temple on a hill with a small monk village surrounding it.  It was a bit strange being there as it appeared that this particular temple did not get many visitors.  We walked up the hill to the temple, took in the view of the sea and then headed towards what we thought was town as we had about an hour walk to get back to where the bikes were parked and decided to go through town.

Turns out Kep is very small and the main roads we assumed was the town, was actually just country road.  We walked for about 45 minutes and decided to detour a little bit so we were closer to the ocean and we were also pretty hungry by this point.

We walked along the water for a while and came across a giant hotel pool with a pool house next to it that appeared to serve food.

So we stopped for a bite.  The pool house was completely devoid of people save two workers who were just hanging out.  We asked them if they had food and they gave us a menu.  Turns out the kitchen and all of the waitstaff was in the hotel up the hill a bit so they radioed in our order and brought it down from the hotel on motorbikes.  Then when it was time to pay, the bill was driven down on a motorbike then they had to go back up to get our change.  It was a pretty strange set up, but the food was pretty decent.  After the quick break, we set off down the road once more, but this time on a slightly busier one.  Since we took a small detour the bikes were still a 45 minute walk away and we were pretty tired at this point, so we hailed a tuk tuk and drove the rest of the way.  This saved us a little bit of daylight and a whole bunch of walking.  When we returned to the bikes, I really wanted to check out the Kep crab market, so we headed there about an hour before sunset.

Kep is famous for their blue crab and as such there is a market you can go to buy your fresh crabs from the fisherman and then have it prepared how you would like.

I had read a few things online before going on how the process works and what not so had a decent idea what I was doing although really you can just fake it till you make it.  I watched some of the locals make their transactions and then decided to try my hand.  The first bid by the ladies were $8/kg and by the end of the haggling we had agreed on $6.  I read online that most people look over each and every crab before putting it in their bag even if they are buying several KG.

When it was time to get my crab, the ladies were being very sneaky and not showing me the crabs that went into the bag.  They tied it up and weighed it showing 1kg.  I knew something was up and opened the bag to find that a lot of the crabs only had one claw and in some cases no claws.  I sifted through the bag and showed the ladies that many of the crabs only had one claw, so they would throw in a small crab or two.  By the end of it, I still had a few one clawed crabs, but a total weight of 1.5kg instead of 1 for the $6 agreed upon.  Not sure if I came away ahead or not, but the experience was fun.

I took my bag of crabs and brought them over to the area where a few shop keepers had stoves.  You could either steam or fry your crabs with frying being a little bit more.  I think it cost me like $.75 to steam my crabs and the bottle of chili sauce was an additional $1.

Then, you head over to the drink stands where you can get a drink and sit down at a table to eat your crab.  The whole excercise was pretty quick and I had 1.5kg of cooked crab for less than $10.  It was a little annoying to get at the meat as crabs are, but it was still super yummy.  I tried to eat fairly quickly though because the sun was setting and we still had a 40 minute drive back to Kampot.  Upon arrival back to the hostel, I took advantage of a quiet night and did some laptopping.

The next morning was the our departure day for Rabbit Island.  The island is just off the coast of Kep, so a group of about 12 of us piled into a mini van and headed back in the direction of Kep.  Upon arriving at the peer, we had to wait for a boat to come from the island to pick us up.  The boats seemed plenty big for all of us, but they wanted us to split up into two boats.  Before we knew it we were on our way over to the island which was about a 15 minute ride.

Once we arrived, we landed on a beach lined with bungalows and about three larger huts which were the 3 food establishments on the island.  We were staying at the middle one which was run by this funny lady who would yell at everyone walking down the street “yum yum?” and was also giving you a hard time.  The thing we were warned about immediately is that we need to keep track of what you ate and drank because they don’t really keep track, you just tell them what you had at the end and then pay them.  Island life eh?

Upon arriving the boys in the group decided that it might be fun to charter a boat and go fishing.  We negotiated $5 each and jumped in a boat out to some fishing spots.  The rods were very SE asian.  A waterbottle with fishing line wrapped around it with a sinker and a hook on the end.  We used shrimp and squid as bate.  Our first spot had lots of bites and our bate kept getting stolen but there was for sure activity.  We moved to another spot and had far fewer bites but a few real fights until each time the line snapped.  I am not sure what the line test or how old they were but our focus switched to catching a single fish.  After a good hour or so we finally got our wish.  After a decent fight, Alex got a uggge fish!

Regardless of our success, being out on the water with a few beers and some good company made the trip worth it.  Just after sunset we returned to the beach and got on with our evening.  We played games and cards until around 11pm which is when they shut off the power for the island.

At that time we dropped our drawers (or at least I did) and headed into the ocean where there was glowing plankton.  The water basically looks normal, but when you move your hands or body in the water, it glows green! Kind of like fireflys in the ocean, but a lot of them.  It was really cool and I ended up swimming for well over an hour.

After the swim, since the power was off, it only made sense to go to bed.  We were sharing bungalows and ours had one bed and one mattress on the floor.  The bungalows are not really sealed at all, so I was kind of just waiting for some kind of animal to walk in and hang out on my mattress while I was sleeping.

That was not the case and I woke up feeling pretty refreshed.  I was still waking up at 6:45am most mornings, so at 7am I was up and out on the beach.  The group was planning to do a walk around the island and snorkeling later, so I did a walk along the beach and lazed out in a hammock until others woke up. The laze around in the hammock turned into a lot longer laze than expected as people were very slow to wake.  I didn’t really want to go ahead and snorkel or do the hike on my own and I was too lazy to go get my book, so I kind of just did nothing for a few hours.

Finally a few people started to emerge and after they had breakfast we were finally off to check out the snorkeling.  I wanted to do the perimeter jungle walk as well as snorkel where most people opted to skip out on the hike.  Anna,  Oska and I decided to do both and ventured off into the jungle on our own.  The walk was about 1.5 hours and included some pretty overgrown trails.  It was pretty enjoyable other than the heat.  After we arrived back at the beach for snorkeling most people were pretty much done and heading back, so the three of us snorkeled together for a while.

It was a proper coral reef and had a lot of various kinds of fishes of all shapes and colors.  This is one instance where I am very happy I purchased a gopro as it did a good job of capturing some of the things I saw.  I spent a good ammount of time in the water checking out the wildlife.  However, our boat off the island was leaving at 3pm and we had to pack up our things and get ready to head back to the mainland.

The rabbit island experience was pretty cool, mostly because there were very few people there and it felt like you were away from civilization for a little while.  Things were slow, relaxed and peaceful, which really gives you the opportunity to reflect on how busy our world has become.  I certainly counted my blessings that I got to spend one night out there and so many nights during the rest of my trip in a relaxed slower paced lifestyle.

The night before, Ivan told us that he was planning to have a party on Saturday night at the hostel’s rooftop bar.  The main party hostel in town called Mad Monkey (a famous party hostel chain throughout SE asia) shuts down at 11pm and so most of the people there move somewhere else.  This evening, our rooftop bar was the destination bar of choice.  I was catching a bus at around noon the next day so was unsure how I would feel about a party that started at midnight, but I said to myself that I would play it by ear.  But first, I had time for a sunset run which felt pretty good as I had taken the previous day off.

The party ended up being pretty fun and I stuck around until mostly the end.  Ivan had a whole bunch of games prepared and the people were pretty fun.  I would say overall, it was a successful evening.

Anna and I had booked the same bus to Sihanoukville so we took off together for the bus station where we boarded our bus and were on our way to the next destination.  Koh Rong Sanloem, an island paradise!