Cambodia Day 7 - Christmss in Kampot - SEAsia day 84

Merry Christmas.  It is a very strange feeling to be amongst the palm trees and sea breezes at this time of year.  We would love to be with family but unfortunately some sacrifices have to be made. 

We rented a motorbike for the day and did a tour of the area around Kampot.  Our first stop was at a Pepper Farm.  Yes you are reading that correct, a pepper farm.  Ground Pepper has to come from somewhere and Kampot pepper is considered the best in the world.  The mineral content of the underlying rocks gives a stronger flavor to the pepper grown here.  The tour of the farm started with a sample of black, white, and red peppercorns before walking us through the fields.  We then were shown the drying, sorting and packaging processes.  There was a tremendous amount of manual labor involved but then labor is cheap in this part of the world. 

With the day's heat picking up we drove down to Kep Beach and cooled off in the sea.  Some friendly local kids came by and Scott enjoyed throwing them into the water.  Getting a bit hungry we then went to the famous Crab Market, a fresh seafood market specializing in fresh crabs.  The smell of rotting fish turned stomachs on arrival and we decided to wait a while before eating.  Turning our bike for home we made a stop at the salt flats.  The locals have found ways of diverting sea water into low lying fields where the water evaporates and they collect the salt crystals to sell.  Essentially we did a tour of salt and pepper today.

We again opted for pizza and enjoyed some wood fired pizza at Mea Culpa.

After dinner we returned to hotel and had a couple drinks by the pool waiting for the sun to rise on the other side of the world.  At 11PM we made our first of three Christmas Facetime calls and spent the next 30 minutes talking with Ted and Tami.  The second call was a bit more chaotic as Dustin and Dani did their best to get Gus and Lucy to talk on the phone while they were playin with newly opened toys.  The final Christmas call started with Diane and DJ and finished with Jason, Haleigh, Mandy, Chelsea, and baby Max.  It was wonderfully seeing everyone's faces and we can't wait to spend proper time together in 2019.