Today, blessedly my day off. I started by walking down to the bakery about 10 minutes away for fresh croissants. Along the way a pack of wild dogs emerged and growled but I had learned my lesson from when this happened a few days ago and had a handful of gravel. I didn’t need to throw it, happily, as it seemed they knew all too well what it might mean: each growler came up, say my hand and retreated. So all was well.
Later, we went down to the sailing club for a mediocre lunch. This is one of the better known places in Kep but clearly not for much longer. It used to be by the water, of course, but now a fringe of land has been reclaimed and there is a mammoth construction going on. It’s a strange marooned sort of place, all done up as though it were by the seaside and instead it’s looking onto a construction site which will, eventually, be a concrete resort of some kind.
There is construction everywhere in Kep. It is a place that is just at the start of becoming a concreted-over blight. A couple of years ago it was apparently quiet and beautiful. A couple of years from now I expect it will look like Sihanoukville. A French hill station, mouldering above the city, has been taken over and turned into a casino. The same developer has apparently also taken over what was once the most scenic island here, Rabbit Island. It is sad, but also quite interesting, though I wish it were not happening in a place where the GF’s mother is coming to visit, as we hoped to have her in a sort of tropical paradise.
After lunch we took our luxury tuktuk up the hill to what is supposed to be a national park. Here, the hiking trail was concreted over into a wide path on which we saw more motorcyclists than walkers (admittedly, we saw only 3 motorcylists, so we largely had it to ourselves). It was a rather sad sight, though still a pleasant walk with nice views over the sea and green hills. We could also see the construction everywhere, huge resorts being developed, including (it seemed) in the park itself.
After completing the loop, we found ourselves on a road not too far from what is supposed to be the only acceptable cafe in Kep, so we ended by walking there. It was one of those places that is plastered with crass sayings and jokes and the owner, an American, was clearly the origin of them all. But luckily his low humour didn’t extend to titties etc, of the sort one sometimes find in backpacker streets, so if one avoided reading anything (including the menu) it was a pleasant place to sit.
Our luxury tuktuk arrived to collect us from here. We stopped at the market for fruit and vegetables (I later cooked the first meal I’d made since leaving Turkey at the end of November) and then back as the GF had some work to do. He is still working upstairs and I am trying to get back into the swing of writing this diary. But now I think I shall go to bed and read.