Take a break please!

We've been on the road for many weeks, which brings with it new pictures, changing places, means of transport and beds and now it was our turn to digest it all on the south coast of Cambodia. We enjoyed the terrace in an open boathouse in the slightly touristy town of Kampot (there is nothing really touristy here) and listened to nature under our mosquito net at night. At four in the morning the fishermen started to work with their loud boat engines and we knew how good we had it and could go back to sleep and relax.

The days in one place were good for strengthening yourself. Traveling is wonderful, but traveling also demands a lot from you, forces you to constantly make new decisions and offers little orientation to what you are used to. We are only just learning to recognize this as an imposition and to take a break occasionally.

Cambodia as a country is much more challenging to travel to than other countries in recent months, at least if you like to leave the classic tourist path. The transport, accommodation and supply systems are barely there in rural areas. Somehow you always get something done, but it's not as easy as we've been doing recently.

The economy, especially the service industry, is developing here. A slow but continuous path can be seen. People strive for development, education and prosperity in a very pleasant way. Being an entrepreneur is normal here. We often wonder how the small stalls on the side of the road survive, whether the café can make ends meet with the few customers and who will buy anything else at the 10th dried meat stall, but it seems to work. In contrast, the large-scale Chinese investments that put completely oversized houses, bridges or casinos on the lawn and do not at all follow the path of slow but honest development that Cambodia usually follows seem like a foreign body.

We'll think about it a little more and then we'll continue with the discovery tour...

Best-of: Bathing in a cave after 100 km of gravel roads

Not our thing: eating crabs and sharks

Wonderful: sleeping in the same bed for four days

Kathleen