phuketrichard wrote: ↑Sat Jan 29, 2022 6:00 pm

SlowJoe wrote: ↑Sat Jan 29, 2022 4:47 pm I have no idea, but I rode around for about 3 hours and 150 kms yesterday in Kep and holy shit the amount of earth moving lorries I had to dodge was something else, so there's a whole lot of something going on.

new 2.7kms beach and lots of people are filling in their land with dirt from the mountains

Its more usual for them to fill land (raise it) because they are fearful of flooding, is that a possibility? Because no authority would have looked at any concerns of the normal person.

John Bingham wrote: ↑Sat Jan 29, 2022 8:57 pm
The eastern part of Kep province towards the Viet border is shockingly low in places. There's a shoreline and a meter of "cliff" and then hundreds of hectares of paddy behind ready to be destroyed by the next swell in the gulf. I find these sea reclamations highly dubious too. A storm could whack the whole thing out in no time. There's a reason coastlines exist.

I swear I noticed some areas that seemed even lower than the sea on the other side while on my way to the border.

Great find, Chuck. (!!)
The shots of the super cool beachside scene circa 1960's are fab. Very reminiscent of many beautiful coastal locations all over the world at that time - but with the added magic of being in that brief epoch when Cambodia reached its highpoint of modern sophistication.
Very super cool.

Great to see the coast so natural too.
But the treasure for me was the boat that appears briefly, in the background, at min 4:08.
A Malaysian built bedar.

A fuzzy, but nevertheless clear pictorial demonstration that some of the coastal Muslims are more a part of the culture (and history) of the great Muslim trading /coastal /fishing peoples who have ruled most of SEA seas to the south for centuries - than they are related to the majority of Cambodian Muslims who have stemmed from the ancient Cham civilisation.

And a clear example, which aligns with some oral histories i have heard, of how these ties were still active right up until the KR time.

Here is another bedar i knew. In Darwin harbour 1977. This boat sailed to Cambodia too. but never made it out.
I have another photo (somewhere) of another Malaysian bedar that dropped anchor on Koh Kong for the monsoon season about 6/7 years ago. Also out of Darwin.

Theee perfect sailboat if you want to rule, or just a super cool ride, all over the SEA seas.

You're such an incurable romantic, JB.