April 15-22, 2015

We arrived at our hotel called Rikitikitavi. The owners were inspired by the Rudyard Kipling story. We found this ironic because we just read that story together at the beginning of our trip (part of Maeve's curriculum) and Michael also just completed a poetry lesson with the children on a Kipling poem entitled "If". We saw this as a good sign.

The Rikitikitavi hotel was highly recommended on Trip Advisor and for good reason. We received an enthusiastically warm welcome, took a look at our room and all the place had to offer and decided to extend our stay to a week.

We had a lovely family room. The kids had their own section and air-conditioner, which is huge! Rikitikitavi had their own restaurant and boasted a daily happy hour. But Liam was most impressed with the binder on the coffee table. It was filled with a list of DVDs that the hotel owned. Score! Liam quicklly started his desired movie list.

No time to unpack or take our hats off....must explore the extensive movie options

Kampot is a small river town. The town offers a few activities. You can take a river cruise, go kayaking, rent bikes, take a day trip up nearby Bokor mountain or the more resort town Kep, or visit one of their famous pepper (spice) plantations. We were mostly interested in a quiet week to complete some work and explore a little.

Rikitikitavi has a lovely Kampot River view. On our first day we decided to walk down the river front and explore that part of town. It was hot and there wasn't much shade at that time of day, so we didn't last too long in the heat. We decided to get some lunch. Apparently we picked the wrong restaurant because we never got any food after waiting over an hour. The manager finally informed us that he was short-staffed due to the Khmer new year holiday. We just paid for our drinks and left.

The Khmer new year holiday lasts three days. We wanted to avoid a larger city and celebrations, so that was one of the reasons to visit Kampot. It seemed that the locals here still wanted to celebrate. We discovered that one popular way to celebrate in Southeast Asia is through Karaoke. Thankfully, the pubs close at 11, so it didn't go on all night like we had experienced in other places.

Sometimes it was difficult for us to leave the comfort of Rikitikitavi. The food was excellent (we could even order room service!) and the restaurant above the rooms had a geat view of the river. We watched locals cruise by on their motorbikes. Entire families would travel on one bike....no helmets. Michael once saw six people on one motorbike. It was not uncommon to see babies carried by a passenger or to witness a young child standing on the seat holding onto the driver's back. It was unnerving to me, but just an average day for them.

Rikitikitavi restaurant. River view to the right.

Baby on board. Looks like the child is driving on the second bike. Dad using only one hand.

We eventually discovered other restaurants in town.

Vegetarian no more. Liam enjoying the biggest cut of pork ribs I have ever seen.

round about with giant jack fruit centerpiece

Found mini-golf (on concrete) at a different guest house with an Indian restaurant.

I always like to explore cities in depth. My family, however, doesn't always share my enthusiasm. In their defense, it was quite hot. I left them behind and took a walk on my own. I read that the rail bridge was worth exploring. It was further than I thought. I'm not sure I would have made the hike if I had known how far it was.

The paved road ended and I took the dirt road to the rail bridge.

The rail bridge. It was a bit scary and windy.

A local house to the side of the train tracks

There was not much to see when you walk the opposite direction from our hotel. I went there on a different day. I saw the Olympic Aquatic Center, which was mainly built for rowing. It wasn't even five years old and looked completely run down and unused.

On our last night I was able to convince the kids to go with me on a sunset cruise and to see some local fireflies. We cruised down the river for about 40 minutes and then parked the boat near a tree. All of the lights on the boat were turned off. As we sat in the dark, you could see the fireflies twinkling and hovering around in one section of the trees. It was so strange because they weren't anywhere else but over these two trees. The captain got off and captured one in his hand so we could see the firefly up close. It was smaller than the ones we have seen in the midwestern states. Some passengers had never seen fireflies before, and it was fun to see their reactions.

The boats that do the cruises across the street from our hotel

We definitely enjoyed our stay at Rikitikitavi. We loved the staff. They were incredibly attentive and took a genuine interest in our family. They even helped us arrange our transfer from Kampot to Siem Reap. Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to our new friends and prepare for another long travel day.