It's been nearly a week now since coming back from our weekend getaway in Kep, and you know how the feeling goes after returning from a holiday. It's always the case whenever my husband and I have taken a holiday, regardless whether it's within Cambodia or overseas - coming back and resuming "normal" activities is just the hardest thing to do.

Although going to Kep was a very welcome respite from our daily grind, it was in fact, a decision made at the 11th hour. Paige, our trusty old Pajero, conked out two nights before the date we set to drive out to Kep. So dear husband was stressed out thinking that the weekend holiday would vanish into thin air. So after coming home from work Wednesday last week, he examined the leaking radiator and, after an hour or so of seeking advise he set on to fix it. On the eve of our departure, I still didn't make any hotel reservations yet thinking we might not be able to leave after all. So Rob burned the midnight oil soldering the holes of the radiator. Luckily, by 2am, he thought he was able to fix the leak but still needed to test drive to make sure everything was fine. Morning came with only a few hours to spare, Rob was still making last-minute checks of the car. By 11.30am, Rob declared the car fit for a long distance drive (although there were still some leaks but they were manageable, he said) and we had to hurry pack our bags and drop Max and Joe at the vet's clinic before it closed. We made it by a hair, so to speak!

To make the story short, we were on our merry way to Kep by lunchtime, and boy, little did we know of the surprise that awaited us. We were still chatty driving into the first 40 or so kilometers out of Phnom Penh. To go there, we took the national road number 3 to get to road number 31 --- and much to our horror, we encountered  an arduous, back-breaking, butt-numbing drive straight into clouds of white dust.

As you can see in the first picture below, we are tilted at about 20degrees angle as half of my husband's side (driver's side) was over a foot lower than my side (passenger's side).

 My husband says it was like driving on a ramp of loose stones, and no, we hardly saw anyone, or any vehicle, coming out of the dust most of the time...

Or even this overly-overloaded van directly in front of us.

"Never again!", my husband and I chorused.

Just before we reached the junction about 10 kilometers away from Angtasom, we heard an incessant honking of horn from a huge trunk behind us. We didn't understand why, and when the truck overtook, we got nervous thinking we were going to be held up or something. But the guys in the truck were gesturing, something about the lights. so when Rob saw a spot he pulled over the side of the road to check.

Turned out that the right fog lights fell off it's mounting, poor Paige. One-eyed Paige :P Oh what fun! And that's me in the car updating my status on FB. 

Although we arrived in Kep in one piece and enjoyed the two glorious days chillaxing at Malibu Estates and Bungalows (story in next post), we came back via national road 2.  Although it's a route that Rob hasn't taken before and despite some bumps in some areas, it was definitely a better choice than national road 3. We arrived safely in just over three hours, unscathed, to tell our story.