Sunday 27 October 2013

Crabs, rabbits and pepper

From Phnom Penh we headed South to the Cambodian coast, first stopping at Kep to get a boat out to Koh Tunsay.

The crab in the title refers to the seafood - Kep is well known for its crab and hence the very large statue they put in the sea!


However the rabbit story is less obvious. Apparently back in the day when the King of Cambodia had a navy he used to stop at a particular island on the way back from military campaigns. This became such a habit that the island was named De-mobilisation island aka Koh Runsay (sp?) in Cambodia. 

A few years after the navy stopped using the island the locals started forgetting why is was called De-mob and started calling it Koh Tunsay as it sounded very similar. Tunsay means rabbit in Cambodian and hence the name Rabbit Island today.

So we headed out with some provisions:


The island is very basic with only a few places with huts on the beach, no electricity or running water.

We managed to entertain ourselves with drinking, floating in the sea, a walk to the seaweed farm for sunset, eating lots of local crab, more drinking and cards! Then when the generator went off by storm & phosphorescence watching.

Sea weed farm!

Sunset on Koh Tunsay


Coco's new wig

View of the beach at brekkie

Local crab at the market - yummy! Especially with the local pepper sauce.

Kampot was the next town we headed to and is famous for its pepper. We stopped at the local market to buy pepper, deep fried snacks and fruit - too full to try more tasty crab or the squid on a stick!


After checking into our dorm room we headed out for a cruise on the river at Kampot - apparently at this time of year it's fresh water at the top (wet season run off from the mountains) and salty underneath. Usually it's all salt water this close to the sea.


We took provisions in the form of a beer tower! (But we didn't let CoCo our Stay leader drink it all himself!)

No sunset - but we saw some fishermen


Another landmark in Kampot - the large durian and other fruit roundabout. I spotted coconuts, pineapple, mangoes, rambutan, longun - all of which I have tried whilst in South East Asia - just need to complete the circle and try some durian!




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