Couldn’t change my dollars anywhere – interesting given that Vietnam is a stone’s throw away from this place. A business opportunity that a Pot-pat hasn’t caught on to yet. Then my last van ride through Cambodia:
Scott, Chantal and I burst out laughing. The driver smiled cautiously. He’d just handed us some “border control” forms. We’d all heard about this – a “medical check” that they scam you $1 for. General consensus is to go with it. But when we got the form, we just couldn’t help ourselves:
Apparently, our dollar is helping to prevent an epidemic of hypothermia. Wetting ourselves, we calmed down and tried to take it seriously. But then the guy aimed a laser at us and took our body temperature that was duly noted on our forms (which, interestingly, had no official logo) and asked us whether we’d experienced any nausea, vomiting, and the like (all key symptoms of a condition that I was quite worried about, given the climate out here). It was all I could do to keep a straight face.
He, on the other hand, was taking it seriously. But when he took my dollar and stuffed it into the side of his briefcase, I had to turn away else he’d have seen me crack. Oh my, if you’re going to scam us, do it convincingly please!
Good afternoon, Vietnam.
I was looking forward to standing on the top deck of the ferry and watching the journey. That’s why you travel by boat after all (and to cross water, obviously). But no, it was just like an aeroplane – we had allocated seats down in third class, some cheesy TV, a cold cloth and bottled water. But no safety demonstration, which was a shame.
Tagged along with Scott and Chantal, walked down to the beach from their hotel and then wandered back towards the main town on the island enquiring at places to stay.
Found a steal: a private bungalow at a family-run hotel, with this view from my patio:
… for $25 per night. Decided to stay three instead of the planned two nights. Once again, winging it has worked out (part of the art, of course, is deciding whether pre-booked is better, but I’m kinda getting the hang of it). They even had bottled tap water 😉
Off for a dip in the sea straight away (the sun sets at 5:30pm-ish and it gets very dark, very quickly here). And they’ve even foot taps outside each bungalow to prevent the mass sand invasion that blighted my Sihanoukville place. Then back to watch the sun set.
No wonder it took 90 mins to get there – the driver crawled along. And then it occurred to me that he’d rarely drive up a hill, because Cambodia don’t have many and those that do exist are dirt tracks, so a tourist bus wouldn’t venture there. Seriously slow. I’d be surprised if we hit 15mph at any point on the journey (even coming down). And he took all the hairpin bends very tightly, and used the brake a lot, rather than the gears – all signs of a driver inexperienced in steep hills. But we were safe.
The King’s former residence was built in 1934 by the French as a holiday home.
Complete with conservatory:
And some interesting artwork:
This spot was chosen because of the views (but not today!):
Then to the “old casino”. I don’t know about gambling, but it would have made an awesome venue for night-time hide-and-seek (I actually won a game of this by just lying down on the landing – in the dark I couldn’t be seen and the seeker scoured all the bedrooms but not the landing!):
And guess who this is?
Go on, have a guess. No, it’s not Buddha (give away: Buddha didn’t have chesticles). It’s Ya Mao – the guardian of travellers. She was lost at sea travelling to see her husband… so it’s assumed that she was, er, “wanting sausage” (the guidebook’s phrase, not mine). Ergo, leaving phallic symbols, such as bananas, ensures pleasant onward travel.
Judging by this lot, she’ll be well-satisfied.
And you may have spotted the woman whispering into the rabbit’s ear:
I’m not sure what this was about. Further research required.
Others were praying to the stones with incense sticks to their heads:
… whilst a westerner judged it appropriate to climb on their religious monuments: #facepalm
A history lesson followed. It turns out that 1979 wasn’t the end of the Khmer Rouge. Although they were booted out of the cities, they controlled (terrorised?) the countryside, including this hill station that was built by the French in 1924. Rural areas were out-of-bounds for Cambodians, with the Khmer Rouge planting landmines and dominating the countryside. King Sihanouk returned from China in 1991 and brokered a deal with Khmer Rouge: you stop killing and we won’t send you to jail. It wasn’t until Pol Pot’s death in 1998 (which the guide advised was because he got sick and died of natural causes) that the regime finally fell. Between 1998 and 2000, landmines were cleared from the region and tourists started visiting again. But it was a ghost town here: 42km from Kampot along “the dancing road” took three hours, so to see anything tourists would have to stay overnight. The only accommodation was a rangers’ station. So the government allowed the development of the hill station, selling it to a private company. They built roads, a new casino and everything else a holiday-maker apparently wants.
Yet, it’s destroyed the place – when you step into the casino, you could be anywhere in the world. The new casino opened in 2012… but it’s very expensive to stay, so people now do day tours. A classic example of a lack of user research.
Another example of this was the waterfall:
Very pretty, but this is what, rather incongruously, you saw looking the other way:
Eating our pre-packed lunch of meat and rice here was surreal.
Whilst I’m no stranger to Catholic churches, it felt odd seeing one here:
With some fantastic views:
And then the slow drive back. Very slow drive back. I’m pretty sure could have biked it in half the time.
A quick kip back at the hotel and then off for the sunset cruise. How different this one was from the one in Phnom Penh – relaxed, nice music, chilling out on the top deck with Jack the Scot, just watching the world go by.
But not the sunset, because the mountain blocked the whole thing!
Fireflies on the way back (no photo as my phone camera wasn’t even close to being capable, and that’s without factoring in my poor photography skills). And then out for dinner with a group from the boat. Overall, a pretty good day with a really nice bunch of people.
Cate’s been in Kampot for four years. She lost her house in the US with the economic crash (living in it for three years without paying because it took so long for them to get round to evicting her due to the number of repossessions they had to deal with). “Somewhere near water, not too big, cheap to live with a sense of community” was her criteria, someone suggested Kampot and six weeks later she was here. She’d never been to Cambodia before, let alone Kampot. Problem is, she now can’t move back: she’s on a Cambodian wage (personal training and teaching yoga) and airfares are $850pp.
But I can confirm she’s a fantastic yoga teacher – it was one of the best classes I’ve ever done. Bordering on bikram yoga in this heat, but that just contributed to the workout.
Another day off to just be in Cambodia. After lunch I went to a screening of “The Killing Fields” – in a lovely, casual cinema:
The film seemed more relevant here than watching it back home. Whilst it showed some of the atrocities, it concentrated on the relationship between a journalist and his Cambodian sidekick. But it certainly brought it to life.
And then I summoned up the courage to try crab for dinner. I like crab (that’s not why I needed courage) it’s just that I had no idea what I’d actually get. Exactly what I ordered, it turns out – a pile of cooked crab!
Nice, and surprisingly filling. And then another thing struck me that I’d noticed, but needed to verify: Cambodians don’t like touching money. When you pay at a restaurant, handing them cash directly makes them uncomfortable – you need to put it on the table, or in the folder the menu comes in.
And now, let’s talk toilets. Unless you’re in a tourist resort (so paying decent money), they have no paper and they’re bucket flush (there’s a vat of water, you scoop some with a small, handled bucket and pour it down the pan).
But there’s always this spray next to it:
It amused me that, despite having no flush and no paper, they always made time to give you a spray to rinse down the pan. Turns out this is exactly why they have the spray. Whilst it is, apparently, very good at killing mosquitos (just aim in the general direction and gravity does the rest), it is, in fact “the bum gun*”.
*I can actually hear my dad laughing (which, to me, is one of the most wonderful sounds in the whole world 🙂
Today was a good or bad day, depending on how you look at it. At times, it felt like one disaster after another. But it wasn’t really.
I’ve never driven a motorbike. I like being alive so never bothered to learn. At $5 for the day (versus $20 for a moto driver), it was much cheaper to drive myself, so we went to practise on the scrubland across from hotel. Straight ahead, I could do. But I failed to get it to turn – it either didn’t move, or shot ahead and tried to throw me off. Eventually it succeeded. I don’t particularly like driving anyway, and my sense of direction (or lack of) is legendary, so reasoned that an extra $15 (about £10) was worth it to not get lost in the Cambodia countryside and prevent a potential insurance claim.
Tourists rule here: the money to be made means it’s worth locals dropping everything to do what you want, when you want. It still makes me feel uneasy, but I’ve learnt to deal with it as, ultimately, it’s mutually beneficial. So ten minutes later, my moto instructor reappeared as my moto driver for the day.
I have long legs. The footrests on the moto were obviously designed by and for Cambodians, who do not. My knees were by my ears (ok, ok, but it’s only a slight exaggeration) and my feet kept sliding off the footrests. A day like this was not going to be fun. My driver tried wedging some stones into the mechanism to improve things, but they just got crushed, so we proceeded. As we went through a local “town” I noticed he kept slowing down, looking around. And then we pulled up to a moto repair shop where he proceeded to hammer nails into the footrests to make them more comfortable for me! What a gem 🙂
“You have a head torch?” the lad asked me. I’m guessing he was about 13 (which, in English terms, is the equivalent of 24). “Yes!” The tourists at the guesthouse had advised I should take one. I rummaged in my bumbag. No head torch. I sat down in a rock and searched each compartment thoroughly. Still no head torch. Pants – what had I done with it? So my phone torch acted as an inferior substitute whilst he showed me the bats, and the temple that was built by the cave’s occupants and is now slowly being claimed by the mountain with an impressive stalagtite as its centrepiece:
He proceeded to tell me that rising up to meet it was a stalagmite called a Shiva Linga. It was, indeed, a Shiva Linga but quite clearly not a stalagmite. His prediction that in a thousand years they’d meet in the middle seemed unlikely seeing that the drips from the stalagtite were actually eroding the Shiva Linga!
When the Khmer Rouge heard of the community living here, they invaded, found them hiding further into the caves and murdered the lot of them.
He also pointed out lots of rather dubious “animals” in the rock (“all natural”) – elephant heads, a crocodile body and a footprint of King Kong. And this cow (can ya see it?):
But he was a lovely, pleasant lad and was happy to answer all my questions, so an enjoyable visit.
I passed on the option of the scenic (read “for experienced climbers only”) route back. A pleasant visit to some impressive caves, with spectacular views:
As we sped (ok, well, trundled at least) through the Cambodian countryside to our next stop I realised my mind was preoccupied with losing my head torch (I’d texted Seb at the hotel who confirmed I hadn’t left it there). It’s annoying, but not the end of the world, I told myself. I knew I wouldn’t get another like it here and it’s been so useful already, but I decided to put it out if my head and enjoy the moment.
The “secret lake” was clearly not secret, with the same raised platforms with hammocks and mats, with thatched roofs like those at the crater lake near Banlung:
Apparently there is a proper secret lake near here – it’s said that less than ten westerners have seen it since its discovery in the early 1900s. Young people gathered for a meal:
… and even the monks came out to play (no photo). Unfortunately, once again rubbish everywhere kinda spoilt it much more than you’d expect.
Pagoda. That’s what these (233) steps lead to:
And here’s what was at the top:
The observant among you will have spotted the conspicuous absence of a pagoda… because apparently it’s still being built. Hmm, maybe he just thought I needed the exercise!
The pepper farm must have been good… even my guide was taking photos:
They grow round columns of brick. That’s all I know because he didn’t speak English, and my knowledge of pepper farming is, shall we say, work in progress:
Ah, this was the pagoda we were meant to visit:
Small, local and obviously used by the community… and it’s already been built, which is obviously a bonus.
Kep’s crab market was the highlight of the trip:
But it would appear that the concept of sustainable fishing has not reached these shores, and I fear that it won’t until it’s too late. Thousands of crabs were being hauled out of the ocean and sold by the kilo.
And they’ll even cook them up there and then:
Don’t like crab? How about a ray?
And the market was, once again, multiple versions of the same stall. These sell various seafood on a stick (perhaps this is where Dibbler started life..?*)
Lunch was a kilo of lychees (in the vein of most of the native fruit – rough skin, slightly sweet fleshy inner with a stone – but a better ROI as they’re easier to peel and much larger than lonigans) and a great view:
Unless you looked closer to home:
Or behind you:
And then the pre-storm winds came, and the stench of sewage offended the nostrils. It offends my eyes, but the locals don’t seem bothered by the sight or the smell (one Pot-pat suggested that tuk-tuk drivers should be employed as litter pickers during the low season; this idea works on many levels).
*You’ll understand this comment if you read Pratchett. If you don’t read Pratchett, then I envy you as you have a whole wonderful (Disc)world to discover.
A trainee Diane Warren. That’s who is composing music throughout Cambodia – slick, but badly written power ballads rule. I managed to not burst into song as I dined (this wasn’t difficult), and then guess what I did? Yep, another sunset to end another wonderful day. And this was stupendous – the most spectacular sunset I’ve ever seen:
Let’s start with a “wildlife” review, with these two still sleeping when I arrived for my pick-up:
Finally checked out of my “hotel”. I’d probably have stayed another night here if it’d been good, but I just couldn’t wait to leave. And nowhere to dry my clothes meant that I was down to my last pair of pants. So glad I brought three spares 🙂 On a positive note, Steve tried to make it up to me by providing an enormous breakfast. Here’s what a full English cooked by an Englishman in Cambodia looks like:
But then the “baguette and jam” arrived. It wasn’t so much the radioactive colour of the jam that perturbed me…
… it was the dead ants in it. But hey, this is Cambodia (and in Mondulkiri, I did actually consider eating ants… but didn’t summon up the courage before they’d all been eaten), so I scraped them out and down it went. Then down to the beach to soak up this view before the van arrived:
… when I was accosted by a lady offering any beauty treatment you could desire. There was no way she was getting her hands (and thread) on my eyebrows (what *is* that all about?!), but a quick haggle and she effectively waxed my legs using cotton thread. It stung a little, and took a lot longer than waxing, but it was pretty effective. I’ll report back whether it stayed away for the advertised “4 or 5 weeks”:
I like Kampot. It reminds me of Kratie (a coastal, functional town that’s alive, but not too touristy). Stopped at another local joint for lunch where there were only four things on the menu (and one was pudding!). And then a minor slip… off to find a massage place and inadvertently ended up at a brothel (or “massage with happy ending”). I can’t comment on her, er, “night job” but I hope she’s better at it than her day job – woke up with bruises down my legs. Will be more careful next time!
Loads of ex-pats here (or “Pot-pats” as they’re called). This may be exacerbated by the lack of locals due to Phjum Benh – the end of the 15-day festival when people return to their old country. Apparently, the temple visits are to “feed” the ghosts: when someone dies but doesn’t make it to the planned place they stay on earth as ghosts. Some of these may be your ancestors. So you go to the temple to feed the ghosts… whilst they’re working out a way to get where they want to be, I assume.
I really needed a ballet class (I’d even do adage;), but yoga was the next best thing and a lovely way to kick off Kampot 🙂
But it would appear that the concept of sustainable fishing has not reached these shores, and I fear that it won’t until it’s too late. Thousands of crabs were being hauled out of the ocean and sold by the kilo.
