I had a fitful night. I ended up turning the AC off as I was so cold. I found out later that my Cambodian friends had the AC set at 16C and they slept on top of the covers. They need to move to Canada! I was also woken up by something thumping around. It sounded as if it was in my room but I think it may have been monkeys on the deck.
When I booked the place, it said that breakfast was included but we discovered it was from a menu rather than a buffet. We ordered the omelette and muesli but it wasn't a huge success with the kids - too dry. It took ages to serve the meal and I felt sorry for the cheerful young lady had to constantly go up and down stairs as the restaurant area was on the 1st floor.
After breakfast we set off for a river resort. It didn't ring a bell with me until I got there and then I realised I was there a couple of months ago. I have to keep telling myself that this is a holiday for the families rather than for me. We found another picnic area; this time it was a floating platform on the river. What I can't stand is all the music; each picnicking family seems to think they need to play their music loudly so that others realise they are enjoying themselves. On top of that, the folks in the next area had a boy who'd been bought a very fancy machine gun with a bayonet on it. He kept rattling away and firing at everything in sight. Serey had noticed at breakfast that the Cambodian children run around freely whereas the children with a European family sat, well behaved. She couldn't understand how the children are able to just sit there and not want to play. Meanwhile, my four Khmer kids were all over the place and the parents just sat relaxed and didn't worry too much. Western parents would have been driven to distraction.
We had the usual fare of boiled chicken cooked in a herbal soup and a dish of fried chicken, plus another dish of seafood. There are times when I'm just not interested in this kind of meal. I think what puts me off is the messiness, which doesn't bother the local folk. Plastic bags float around and end up in the river; kids pick up cans and throw them in the water - it all gets a bit depressing. The two families took off for a while in boats. They look like three-wheelers except they have huge balloon shaped wheels with paddles on them. Thornin came back for me when Serey had had enough and I jumped in. It was lovely and cool on the river but quite a job pedalling. I was pleased with Boroith and Boridth as they went around picking up cans and bottles floating in the river. We returned to the hotel and spent some time in the pool. Sreyneth doesn't travel very well so she went straight to bed. We stayed there until the early evening and then we drove to Kep to find another picnic spot on the seafront.
It was almost 6pm when we arrived so most of the tourists had already left. I was eternally grateful that they didn't bother ordering the usual shrimp and crab dishes. Instead we had a lovely dish of seafood such as squid and octopus. Another dish was a soup with shrimp. I relaxed in a hammock and ate what came to me - at times I can't be bothered with food so I just sit, looking aloof, in the hammock. Boroith took his boys to buy a toy in the market and they came back with buckets with various tools such as spade and fork. Then Thornin had to make sure his children went to the market to buy the same thing. Thornin joked that his son would buy something bigger. His son, who is only four years old, said it wasn't a good idea as something bigger would be too heavy for him to carry. While they were away, Boroith talked about wanting to come to Canada; he said it had to be done before I left the planet.
We thought we were going home but the children decided they needed to use their new tools to build a castle on the beach. So our annual little holiday came to an end. Tomorrow we drive to Phnom Penh and Boroith and family then have another 3 hour trip to their home. I'll leave the next day for Battambang for my final fling around the country, visiting friends and saying farewell.
