day one: Leave Kampot on Joe's motobike ( driving them in the rural areas is way way safe, not like Phenmom Phen where the density is +324%) after a super pretty drive (early in the cool air) we arrive for breakfast in the market, breakfast was only partly identifiable, awesome coco curry over noodles with (the unidentifiable) veggies underneath, probably lotus, basil, some type of fennel/cabbage/ruffage mix. breakfast was completed with a bunch of gnome, little fried things - gnome really means pocket/dumpling/potsticker type thing, and you can put in them what ever you (they) want. I like the sweet bean curd ones.
then bike ride out to this fantastic Wat (temple) where we tour the caves and see all the pictures of Budda, one interesting thing was the pictures all depicted Caucasian buddah's and monks all of which bore a striking resemblance to Joe cause he has his head shaved.
oh, and I have cat eyes - i.e. colored blue because cats are the only animal here with colored eyes. after the wat we headed to lotsa different peoples houses (we were with Lauren and her Khmer friend) and had tons of mango's and coconuts everywhere we went, just a nice new years visit out in the middle of nowhere. Pretty fun and we came home laden with jackfruit and coconuts and mangos and 3 kinds of bananas.
made it back just in time to receive (catch?) the angles, who apparently come at dinner time, which was cucumbers, boiled chicken and tons of rice. pretty good. Then I had my first durian. which tasted like sauteed celery with caramelized onions and sweet custard all mixed together in a sticky goo. Yeah you can see why people go nuts over this.
Day two of New years started with breakfast in the market again (again with the same lady named Ma Mop) and this time I had fried egg omelet on more weird ruffage/sticks (try eating shaved lemongrass/loutus stalk -that is the consitency) and a like a pork sauce on top, it was killer. then Khmer Iced coffee later at another friends food stall, then back to get the lunch prepared for the Monks, the four year old LeDie and head to the temple, where we offered up money (equivalent of like $0.50), got blessed, burnt incense in a couple of places and then sat and watched the monks eat. basically the monks eat super plain food daily in the morning and fast in the afternoon/evening. On holidays the community brings them tasty food, which we did, and then when they were done everyone sat around and has a potluck. which is what we did, we sat with Ma Mop the breakfast lady and had a ton of really good food, pork, beef, chicken and fish in all kinds of noodle/curry/rice dishes that I am really going to miss when I leave this hemisphere.
After too much food, good blessings from the old ladies (not monks per say...but old women who live at the Wat and have given up their material ways, devotees.....like nuns, who sit around and have old lady's group, most are widows).
then we repaired to the hammocks to drift away the heat of the day.....after dinner back to the wat for fried bananas and wat games (which were really just supervised flirting between all the unmarrieds) and then dancing. more incense/praying and offering money spreading sand and group rituals. Then home to sleep a deep sleep, the sleep of the just, just plain tired. this heat zaps me, seriously zaps me. I have no problem sleeping 12 hours.
Now we are back in Kampot, most places including Joe's restaurant are closed, which means I can cook! I haven't made my own food in six weeks, isn't that weird?
I am thinking tuna melts for lunch and chicken/coco/lotus/ curry for dinner with lots of wine and whiskey. The whiskey really helps the GIT stay healthy, seriously i had forgotten how much that is important.
Tomorrow is a trip up the Bokor Mountain and through the Jungle.
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