The Hills are alive...
Trip Start
Jun 26, 2009
1
34
180
Trip End
Jun 29, 2010
Kampot, Cambodia
Sunday, November 1, 2009
We hired a moped and went to explore Phnom Chhnork and Phnom Sorsia; they are hills near Kampot which have caves and temples in/on them. We found Phnom Chhnork quite easily but not the staircase up it! The guide book said to find Wat Ang Sdok (a temple) where a monk takes an entrance fee and you walk across the rice fields to a staircase leading up the hill. We found the wat (we think – there only seemed to be loads of rice fields and this one wat in the area) but no-one spoke English or tried to take an entrance fee. At this point we discovered that our moped didn’t lock! We didn’t want to leave it unattended for long so decided we had to ditch climbing the hill and just look round the wat (which was pumping out the weirdest music!). The community living there were fascinated with us… The kids followed us round (but if we looked at them they’d run away) and we were offered some green tea by the oldies, which we eagerly accepted. So there we were… Two folk from Reigate sat drinking tea with a bunch of old Cambodian men, monks and local kiddies. We couldn’t speak a word of each other’s language but just kinda sat and grinned at each other. It was so strange but soooo cool! Then someone delivered a box of what looked like bibles in Cambodian and the locals’ attention was taken off the shiny new foreigners to the shiny new bibles! So we said our goodbyes (left a donation) and pegged it. Definitely an unforgettable experience!
We then made our way to Phnom Sorsia where we, again, decided not to leave the bike and opted for pics from the bottom of the hill. We then headed back to Kampot for refreshments but only after we’d had a quick stop-off at the salt fields.
After a quick stop in town, we went on the hunt for fruit fields; durian in particular. (Durian is something that I remember from when I was a kid living in Singapore… It stinks to high heaven and my family had always wanted to try it which we did once and I couldn’t bring myself to try it. I finally tried it in China at the start of our trip and actually really like it but it still stinks as badly as I remember it!). Kampot it the main producer of durian so we found many fields filled with durian trees as well as mango, coconut, jack-fruit (another yummy asian fruit), bananas, etc. We drove all the way past the zoo to Tek Chhouu Falls (which are more like rapids) before turning round as it was getting dark. All in all, a fun day of exploring!
The next day, we took a tour to Bokor National Park… And what a day it was! We had a mammoth two hour journey bumping around in the back of a pick-up truck up the mountain. I cannot express how uncomfortable we were… There were seven of us squished in a small area and we were properly thrown around. It was horrible! But what gorgeous views!
When we finally made it to the top, we explored the ruins of the buildings that were once a functioning village. We explored the Black Palace which the king built as his summer home but never quite got round to using. It’s a shell of a building which is (as the name suggests) totally black! We then had lunch at the Ranger Station (which was so good… just fried rice with veg but really yummy and huge portions!) before checking out the ruins of the casino and hotel. Apparently, there were quite a few people who, having lost their money at the casino, jumped off the cliff behind it! Nice… Still, nice views (it’s a very steep drop).
We then got back in the truck and saw the cathedral, water tower and post office before going to Popokvil Falls (where we had been told when we booked the tour that we would be able to swim). We rocked on up to find that, as it was dry season, it was merely a trickle over some rocks! Gutted. To add insult to injury, I smacked my knee on the corner of one of the rocks and promptly burst into tears in front of the whole of our tour group (my excuse was that I was tired!). How embarrassing!
We then endured another two hours in the back of the truck (where we discovered that standing up was far less painful than sitting down, but a whole lot scarier and dustier) to Kampot. It was a wicked day but we were battered and bruised by the end of it.
On Tuesday, we hired a moped to explore Kep which is down the road from Kampot. We hired it at 1pm but got chatting to an American girl, Jacky, who was staying in our guesthouse so didn’t actually leave until 4pm… Oops!
Kep was really pretty… It’s a seaside town with little there besides the awesome crab market (where we had a fab dinner of fresh seafood) and many weird statues (a naked fisherman’s wife, a crab and some bizarre chicken type creatures). We zipped round and took some gorgeous sunset pics when suddenly big black clouds came over… The winds picked up and it started chucking it down. It was surreal as it seemed to come from nowhere! We took cover under some huts with hammocks before heading to the crab market for some nosh and then heading home.
The next day, we checked out but only after Drew had a massage at Seeing Hands Massage… Yes, a massage by a blind Cambodian. He describes it as "rigorous physiotherapy for your entire body" and very much enjoyed it. Not bad for four bucks!
(In case you’re wondering why there are no pics… See the next Phnom Penh entry:
“Unfortunately, when we later went to get our Laos visas, we needed some passport photos so went to a computer place who not only gave us some passport pics but also a virus on our camera memory card! We lost all our Kep pics, most of our Kampot pics and all our shooting pics. It was a horrible feeling when we realized what had happened…”
