My last full day in Phnom Penh was Friday, I only realised later it was Friday 13th!!
I was planning on having a quiet day but also wanted to see a bit more of the City. I messaged Mr Lucky and he said he was free and we could do a small city tour.
This sounded fine to me as my back was definitely a bit sore.
Mr Lucky is a funny thing who unfortunately he doesn’t live up to his name!
He arrived and informed me that overnight someone had unscrewed and stolen his wing mirrors! ☹️😬 Awful for him and less than ideal to be driving around a mad busy city with no mirrors! But, Hey Ho!
We set off to have a drive by the river and to see the Grand Palace, again.
Two rivers join in Phnom Penh, The Tonle Sap river, which flows down from the huge Tonle Sap Lake this then becomes the mighty Mekong River which flows into the into and through the Mekong Delta.
I would have really liked to do a small Mekong Delta Cruise on one of the old wood and steal boats but I didn’t book in advance and the timings wouldn’t work with my bookings in Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City they were also incredibly expensive for what you get. I’ll save my money for Halong Bay in Vietnam.
The roads around the river seem particularly busy, with all manner of vehicles carrying a bewildering array of goods! As we are sat in traffic Mr Lucky starts pointing at his dash board where there is a flashing red light, he mentions petrol! At this point the traffic is barely moving, I have no idea where he’s going to get petrol so have visions of us grinding to a halt further slowing down the traffic and making a spectacle of ourselves!! 😃 As the traffic clears I spot a petrol station ahead….Phew.
But, No, we go sailing past the petrol station then head off the main road into the winding back streets before pulling up into a random building/garage/lockup!? Where someone starts to fill up the Tuk Tuk. Mr Lucky then asks to borrow $5 to pay for the petrol! 😂😂😂
From here we go through the city to a Large Temple called Wat Phnom Daun Penh. It’s in a nice park and it looks relatively large but I’m just not in the mood to look around so instead I have a quiet stroll around it through the shady park!
Our next stop is The Central Market. My main reason for visiting is the building itself rather than the shopping. The building is a beautiful Art Deco Structure opened in 1937 and built by the French during their colonial rule.
The building is gorgeous, with a big domed area at the centre then 4 branches off from there.
It’s a huge market but sadly there are very few people in there.
I’m pretty much done after this, so ask Mr Lucky to take me back to the hotel.
I have a lovely long, cold swim and read my book.
I’m going to attempt an early night, as I’m leaving for Kampot in the morning. My bus departure time is 8am from the hotel, but reception has told me I need to be ready and waiting an hour before! Annoying.
I don’t get a great nights sleep, no idea why, I just can’t get to off to sleep. Before I know it it’s 5.45 time to be up and at it!
I head downstairs at 7am and have a pot of tea while I wait for the bus to turn up.
Bang on 8am (not 7, or 7.30 or 7.45 but right when my ticket said it would!) a driver appears in the lobby, myself and another guest who is waiting go forwards, he chats a bit to the receptionist. She then informs me that this is the bus for Siem Reap. She then informs me that my bus is late and will now be arriving at 3pm!! WTAF! 😱😳 That’s not late that’s bloody ridiculous!! 7 hours! I am very pissed off. Especially as I’ve checked out of the hotel, I’m packed, I’m very tired!
The receptionist speaks to the company but it is what it is.
Interestingly I received a random WhatsApp from Giant Ibis the day before, just saying “Hi it’s Samsung from Giant Ibis” nothing else. I replied back saying Hi.
It turns out they emailed me the change of plan, but it went to my gmail which I don’t often look at. (That will now change)
I have a WhatsApp conversation with the company who are happy to refund my money. I manage to get a seat booked on a VET minibus going to Kampot at 12. So I cancel my ticket and get set to leave at the much more respectful time of 12pm!
Luckily I had booked seat 2, which was the front passenger seat as the mini bus was pretty full of large, slightly drunk Russian men! 😂
The journey was good, although it took a long time to get out of Phnom Penh. The driver stopped every hour, mainly for the Russian guys to have a smoke!! 😂
We arrived in Kampot at 3.40 and my hotel was just a short Tuk Tuk ride away.
The hotel is central to the old town and directly opposite the river.
As it’s the weekend lots of local people are out and about walking along the riverside promenade enjoying the cool air and their weekend.
It’s great to sit on the hotel terrace and people watch with a beer.
I am still feeling really tired so I go out earlyish for dinner. I saw a little vegetarian place with good reviews so I walk there. It’s nice but empty, but I’m hungry so I stay and order the Falafel bowel! 😍😘 OMG, so good. The huge salad element is amazing.
Feeling stuffed and sleepy it’s home to bed!
There are a few things I’d like to do in Kampot but I wake up to heavy rain and the hills surrounding the town shrouded in cloud!
I chat to the lovely manager, Pat, he says that a trip up to Bokor Mountain can’t be done in a Tuk Tuk you have to go in a car and the cost for a return trip, plus seeing all the sites is $50 this seems a little high to me in comparison to other trips I’ve taken. But I think I might book one for the next day when hopefully the weather improves!
I borrow a nice big umbrella and go for a walk around the town.
It’s certainly in much better shape than Battenbang, the roads are surfaced and it doesn’t feel like a dusty ghost town. The buildings are pretty, French Colonial mixed with Art Deco. Starbucks has nabbed a beautiful Art Deco building right by the river!
I treat myself to a a back massage in the hope of ironing out the kinks from my fall. I’m pretty sure I explained that I wanted just a back massage, but I got a full body one instead, which was fine. My back certainly feels better.
One of the things Kampot is well known for is its Pepper! Apparently it’s amongst the best in the world, who knew? Well, actually I did know this! A Pepper Farm visit was one of the things I wanted to do, but not in the pouring rain! Luckily for me when I came out from my massage the rain had eased a lot. I was looking around the Pepper Shop and chatting to the manager and she recommended BoTree Pepper Farm, the main one here is Le Plantation, but it’s not owned by Cambodians. Bo tree is owned by a Cambodian & a Scott!
She pointed out a Tuk Tuk driver who was parked outside she said he was great, spoke good English and would do a return trip for $15. So I said let’s do it! I jumped into Sa’s Tuk Tuk and we set off!
It’s quite a way out of town and Sa was great and keeping me informed about things as we drove.
One of the things he pointed out was a large grey half finished building with no windows.
I’d seen a lot of these dotted about on my bus journeys, but just assumed they were unfinished buildings. They are in fact buildings designed with speakers on the roof and small openings. The speakers play bird sounds, specifically, swallow bird calls. This is to attract more swallows to come and nest inside the building. Once they are nesting their nests are harvested for the Chinese birds nest market! Once Sa had explained this, you start to notice the increased bird noise, then look and there will be one of these buildings.
As we leave Kampot you can see the changing landscape, lush fields and surrounding hills.
We came upon a beautiful lake. Whilst the lake looks beautiful its history isn’t.
It is called The Secret Lake and it grows and shrinks with the seasons, it is man made lake.
It was constructed by prisoners of the Khmer Rouge. The lake was built to provide water for the increased rice production under the Khmer Rouges agricultural policy. Thousands of prisoners died in its construction and are buried in a mass grave beneath the lake. Beautiful and tragic.
The last part of our drive to the Farm was on an unfinished road, which due to the rain was very muddy and rutted, on one particular section I was convinced we were going to overturn! Luckily we made it! I really didn’t need another mud bath!
Bo Tree is fabulous. The whole farm is completely organic, and everything is sourced locally, even the crab shells used in their homemade pesticides and the textiles used to tie the vines to the posts! It is also a ‘Workaway’ host. The volunteers who do the ‘Workaway” get board & lodging in exchange for their services. What I really liked about this was that the Volunteers do not do any of the paid work on the farm, that is all done by local people, who need the work. Their job as volunteers is to show the tourists around the farm using their multiple languages.
It’s a smallish farm and felt really homly, lots of friendly dogs and cats!
I was shown around by a lovely young woman called Kate, from Bristol!
She has been staying on the farm for 2 weeks having travelled up through Vietnam. She was very knowledgeable about the growing and production of the pepper.
I had no idea that pepper is a vine! 😳
So the pepper grows on vines and is actually a berry. Once ready it’s harvested and then the different peppers are created. First the pepper is boiled, red pepper is boiled for the shortest time so it retains more of the berry flavour. The rest is boiled for a longer. The white pepper then has the outer husk removed and the black pepper doesn’t. I can’t remember what happens with the green pepper corns! All the pepper is then dried.
I did a tasting, even though I’m not a big pepper fan. It was incredible how different they taste and smell. I also tried whole green peppercorns in brine, I tried them with some rice, surprisingly delicious! 😋
I ended up sitting with Kate for ages chatting about travelling and drinking lovely Pippali pepper tea!
It was such a lovely experience. It made my day.
I organised with Sa for his friend to take me to Bokor Mountain the following day.
I popped across the road for dinner, to a much cheaper, busier place. I went for my usual, Veggie Rice but then went a bit off piste and ordered some Garlic bread! 😛 The rice was good the garlic bread was a huge portion which I would never be able to eat.
Whilst I was eating a very young boy came in to the restaurant begging, the first time I’ve seen this here. I gave him a couple of dollars, once he’d left I realised I could have given him my garlic bread! Luckily he walked past again with his friend and they left with a few slices each, not sure if they’ll like it it’s not exactly a Cambodian stable! But at least it wasn’t wasted.
I have woken up to a pretty bright sunny, dry morning which is great for my Mountain trip!
My driver, Sa’s friend Thebm (pronounced Towan) was there waiting at 10am.
I thought he would be driving a car, as Sa had said Tuk Tuks can’t get up the mountain, what he was actually driving was the little enclosed Tuk Tuk 🚙, which was great as it’s much more open, perhaps not as comfortable as a car but hey Ho.
It takes well over an hour to get to the top of the mountain, especially in this vehicle! It’s a really lovely drive up through lush greenery, which smelt really nice and fresh. There are lots of Macaque Monkeys along the way, some of the males looked very big and a little scary! The views across to the Ocean at Kep are fabulous, with lots of small waterfalls along the way.
Our first stop is a huge Buddha statue almost at the top. This was a good stop. Then it starts getting a bit weird.
As you reach the top it kind of levels out for a bit and there are all these huge, grey, half built, depressing buildings everywhere one is supposed to be a hotel, it honestly looks like a gulag! This appearance is enhanced by the mist and cloud cover coming in. There appears to be nobody living in any of the buildings, even the finished ones.
We drive past all this grimness and visit a beautiful natural big waterfall. It is in full flow due to the rain overnight. Towan says we could walk across a bit to see over the edge! 😂😂😳 I politely decline, I’m 💯% sure I would slip and go right over the Edge!
The cost of visiting the waterfall is 2,000 riel £2 and includes a bottle of water! Bargin.
We drive back past the Gulags and then on towards a Temple and monastery. This takes us past a very large dam being constructed and paid for by the Chinese. (Chinese takeover by stealth) then past a huge, ugly building that’s a Casino and Hotel. This was built by a Cambodian Entrepreneur, and Chinese backers apparently but caters to the growing and lucrative Chinese gambling market.
During Colonial rule from 1863 – 1953 the French would escape to Bokor Highlands to get out of the heat. They built a small enclave with church’s, shops, post offices and a big hotel. This all fell to ruin during the ensuing civil war, it is this remodeled hotel that now houses the casino.
There are more abandoned houses nearby, it is all just a little sad!
By now we are in thick cloud and it’s started to rain. We stop at the Temple and monastery, but seriously, I can’t see a bloody thing! 😂
I think we did remarkably well to reach the top before the cloud and rain came drown! 👍🩵
We decide to head back down the mountain and Towan sets the Tuk Tuk/car to economy mode, which is basically turning of the engine and freewheeling all the way down the mountain!! 😂😂 it’s definitely more peaceful.
Towan is a lovely guy, a Kampot local who lives here with his family, he speaks excellent English, which also teaches to local children.
He was great company and a very knowledgable guide.
He also picked me some flowers, which are called Minkey Cups, but would be better called Penis Plants!! 😂😂
We managed to share a lot of personal history on our freewheel down the Mountain! 😍
All in all another fantastic day. It is a real shame I can’t spend a bit more time here or in nearby Kep, which is by the sea. But I guess I’ll just have to return!
Things I’ve noticed in Kampot.
One: It’s pretty well maintained, which I’ve mentioned.
Two: I’ve seen a few rats! 🐀 possibly due to being so close to the river.
Three: It has the largest number of western white men I’ve seen since I arrived in Cambodia. It is definitely a spot that people, or more specifically men, come to retire to. There is an Irish Bar, and yesterday I walked past a restaurant with lots of westerners eating Roast Dinners!
Four: it also has the largest number of ‘Dance’ and ‘hook up’ bars I’ve seen. I’m sure there were plenty in Phnom Penh, I just didn’t see them.
I feel there may be a correlation between some of the above!
I’m sure there is a very different vibe during the dry season when it’s busy, bustling and less damp, overall I like it. 😍
I going back to Phnom Penh tomorrow morning, hopefully 🤞 my bus won’t be “Rescheduled”!
I need to now start looking at planning my journey around Vietnam!
Anyone who has visited and has any tips, ideas or advice please let me know!
Sorry it’s another long blog! 😍
Have a great week guys.
❤️🩵🩷💚
Books Read
Guilty Mothers. Angela Marsons. Book 20 of the DI Kim Stone Series.
I like this book series, obviously, as I’ve read all 20 so far!! ❤️
Hereandthereclaire.com 