Kep to Phnom Penh

We left Jasmine Valley after lunch - I had pig ribs and chips.
We stopped on the way back to buy corn and papaya - which had be smelled to see if it was ripe. It was. Mum had it for breakfast today with lime. We didn't buy the jackfruit.

Kep in Cambodia - Jasmine Valley

At Kep we stayed at Jasmine Valley. It has 6 mud brick bungalows and 3 wooden tree houses. It was all built from natural resources.

Here are some photos of Jasmine Valley and the tree house we stayed in.

View from our treehouse

The bathroom - only cold water but that was ok for me (Mum wasn't too sure!)

also from the treehouse

and another treehouse shot

AHHH ... so quiet, except for the birds, and frogs, crickets geckos .... !

This is the entrance to our treehouse

This is the treehouse resident. Yesterday he was sitting on the table and Mum thought it was a lovely wooden gekko and went to pick him up! She jumped!

This is our treehouse from below

All the electricity at Jasmine Valley is solar powered.

Just me painting

water lillies in the clay pot

and again

moss growing on the clay brick wall

Nothing stops me swim training!

just a leaf

I could paint a design from this

This is the mould which gets filled with soft clay

the clay in the mould gets baked in the sun and turns into bricks

and the bricks make a wall .. and bungalows

Nothing better than a murky brown pool with fish and water lilies 

KEP

We drove to Kep last night and got here at 7.30pm. We are all staying in a tree house in the jungle at Jasmine Valley. Sally, Sopheak, Mum and me. The walls are open and we need mosquito nets so we don’t get bitten. Lying in bed I can hear the rustling of the leaves, the wind, the soft rain, the crickets and birds. We can hear nature.

We got up early and had breakfast at 6.30am before we climbed up the mountain trail behind our tree-house and went jungle trekking. We climbed and walked for about an hour and a half and meandered down to dusty roads and then the sea. The sea isn’t like Sydney harbour or the beaches, it’s murky brown with islands dotted in the distance. 

Jasmine valley, our tree house is a dot in the distance

fungus

Fungus

Kampot pepper is famous and the BEST pepper in the world, although it’s actually grown in Kep.  I hadn’t seen a pepper farm before so we got a tuk tuk which bumped us across muddy, potholed, sandy tracks. I didn’t know pepper was green on the bush but it is. The little green balls turn black when they’re baked in the sun, unless the outside layer is taken off first – and then the pepper is white pepper. We had lunch at the pepper farm, and guess what? there was pepper in all our dishes, which isn’t surprising!

The tuk tuk driver filled up his motorbike from the "petrol station".

Sopheak & I in the tuk tuk

The "petrol station"

filling up!

the menu

Pepper farm

Pepper growing

After the long day out, we got back to Jasmine Valley and grabbed our cozzies for a swim. The pool is like no other, the water is brown which comes from the mountain, lily pads are emerging at the top, and fish the size of two fingers nibble your feet.

I then had a shower with cold water, because there is no hot water. The bathroom in a tree house is outside.

We drive back to Phnom Penh tomorrow, it will take  about 3 hours.