Kampot
Another day spent on a bus. It could have been worse, but the rain – the downpour – didn't make our 2 hour stopover in Phnom Penh any fun. We got into Battambang late in the evening and we were immediately greeted by a swarm of tuk tuk drivers. Exhausted, we settled on a hotel that could have easily doubled as a mental asylum with its empty white tiled walls, florescent lighting, and creepsters lurking in the hallways.
"You can go up the mountain, some friends of mine have been, and their pictures are really pretty… but I can't be bothered." Our new friend Matt from NFO said in our Kampot briefing before we left Takeo. After our little adventure up the mountain that holds the ghost town of Bokhor within the Preah Moivong National Park, I can kinda see why he can't be bothered. We should have known better when our mini-bus picked us up at 8:30 in the morning only to drive us 3 minutes to the tour guide agency, where the owner of the agency opened the mini-bus door and greeted us with a big smile asking us to come inside so she could tell us something. This is when you know you're probably not going to have the day you planned (and paid) for.
Sure enough, she told us our tour was canceled. We could go on the tour tomorrow (not possible, we are leaving tomorrow, we explained) or go up to the hill station on motorbikes, or get our money back. There's not much to do in Kampot itself, and as much as I love hanging out at a cafe for hours on end (really, I do!) I was starting to feel like we were in a weird cycle of bus-hotel-cafe that I wanted to break. We decided to go, if we could each have our own motorbike. Which was agreed to, until one of the motorbikes was manual and neither of us are super confident with a manual bike yet. James, if you're reading this: we must practice more in England over Easter.
The ride up to the hill station of Bokhor (established by the French in the 1920's) was nice. I'm not usually one for riding on the back of a motorbike (I prefer my own) but it was nice to be able to rest against Andrew and gaze out over the sprawling scenery as we climbed (and climbed and climbed) the mountain. It took about 40 minutes or so to get there, and in retrospect, we could have easily found the park- and the hill station on our own. We had anticipated our "guides" telling us about the site, but instead, he would walk us to one place, and then take us through the (muddy) shortcut to get to the other, where he sat outside eating his lunch while we explored.
The view from the top. (These were taken directly behind the old casino.) Everything you see that's green (jungle) is part of the National Park. There's a lot of illegal logging done however, if caught and you don't have money, you go to jail. Otherwise, you can get off by slipping the officers some money. We heard lots of monkey calls and were told elephants roamed freely. According to Wikipedia: The town was built as a resort by the colonial French settlers to offer an escape from the heat, humidity and general insalubrity of Phnom Penh.[1]Nine hundred lives were lost in nine months during the construction of the resort in this remote mountain location. The centrepiece of the resort was the grand Bokor Palace Hotel & Casino, complemented by shops, a post office (now demolished), a church and the Royal Apartments. It is also an important cultural site, showing how the colonial settlers spent their free time. Bokor Hill was abandoned first by the French in late 1940s, during the First Indochina War, because of local insurrections guided by the Khmer Issarak, and then for good in 1972, as Khmer Rouge took over the area. During the Vietnamese invasion in 1979, Khmer Rouge entrenched themselves and held on tightly for months. In earlier 1990s Bokor Hill was still one of the last strongholds of Khmer Rouge.
The old casino. Lots of workers were inside putting it back together again, otherwise we would have been able to go in. We walked around part of the rear of the casino where a guard sat across the street from a nondescript building and where our guide told us the casino owner lived. That's why the guard was there, not for the run down Bokhor ghost town. Unfortunately I have no idea what the other buildings were that we went under an arch to explore.
I loved the "No Sleeping Here At Night" sign. You know, just in case you were tempted to sleep on top of a mountain full of wild jungle animals. Although, now that I type that out, it does sound a bit fun, doesn't it?
The red Cambodian scrawl reads: I love Cambodia. I had to request to stop in the church, and then the brand new casino. This huge monstrosity of a casino and hotel has recently been completed. It's fairly ridiculous, in my opinion, as it was virtually empty (but our guide did assure us that it gets many visitors every night) and especially considering all of Bokhor takes less than an hour to walk around and take in. We almost went onto the very empty casino floor, until the doormen asked us to check our bags and cameras. I felt silly taking the time to hand over everything before walking in just to see, and not gamble, on the floor. Curious, I asked one of the five front deskmen (in the empty lobby) how much it cost to stay the night. $65.00 for a weekday night, $75.00 for a weekend night. Not bad at all, for Western prices, right? But we're in Cambodia, our room tonight is $6.00 for a no frills private room and bathroom. We left the casino shortly after I got reprimanded for taking a picture of the nearly empty lobby.
On our way out the drive, our guides began to worry about their rear bike tire. It was losing air. Not more than 3 km later, one of them began asking workers for directions to where he could find some air for his tire, and then he dropped off the other guide (we're not really sure what his role was on the trip actually, as we found out he was Vietnamese and just recently moved to Cambodia, and couldn't speak a lot of either Cambodian or English) with us and didn't exactly tell us what to do. So we waited. For an hour. Under a tree that a Khmer guard pointed out to help shield us from the bright sun.
We thought the plan was to see the big lady statue (that's all our guide told us about her) and then the waterfall before heading back into town for the sunset river cruise. We saw the big lady statue, and started descending the mountain.
We passed signs to the waterfall, but kept going down the mountain. Then the fog rolled in, and then it started to rain. At first only a sprinkle, and then it poured. We scooted down the mountain slower than we made it up, got to the bottom without seeing the waterfall, and I wondered if it was because of the rain. I figured we were driving back to the agency, until we turned off of the main road and started heading in another direction. We stopped at a small rushing river with hammocks strung up on the surrounding trees, and Khmer vendors walking up to us with trays of food held carefully under umbrellas. Our "guides" walked us to the riverbank and told us a dam was further upstream if we would like to see it. It was still pouring. Andrew and I shook our heads, completely uninterested. "Where's the waterfall?" I asked tentatively, wondering exactly how far we'd have to trek in the downpour to see it. "Here! Here is what we in Cambodia call waterfall!" Our "guide" said pointing at the horizontal rush of water. "Really?" I asked. "Yes! You can see the rapids!" He replied as I looked up at Andrew's "you've got to be $!*%ing kidding me" face. We climbed back on the bike, and rode for 30 minutes or so back to the agency, arriving wet. and cold. and in no mood for a sunset cruise on the river.
When we arrived, we asked if we could cancel, and get a refund for the cruise. The owner said "Of course! I can give you $2.00 back." The cruise cost $5.00. "The entire tour was a disaster…" Andrew tried to reason with her to get the full price back, while I opened up the pamphlet listing off what would be included in the tour. She argued that the weather and motorbike problem wasn't her fault. She's right, obviously the weather wasn't her fault. But, we were supposed to go in a mini-bus, and when we agreed to go on motorbikes, we assumed they would function properly for the day we had them. And, we thought we were going to see a proper waterfall, one that falls from top to bottom. There was a real waterfall in the pamphlet and I told her that we didn't see this. Furthermore, we didn't trek anywhere, and there was no "Black Palace" (as was listed in the pamphlet) in our day either. I pointed to the pictures, and screamed "This is a house of lies!" (ok, maybe I didn't quote Almost Famous, but I certainly got the same message across. She staunchly stood by her terrible customer service (ok, complete lack of) skills that nothing was her fault. She gave us $4.00 instead of the $10.00 we should have received, and even though she tried to get the last word in that nothing was her fault, I did not give her the immature victory she did not deserve. That immature victory was MINE as I shouted "BUT IT IS YOUR FAULT! THAT IS NOT A WATERFALL AND I WILL GET THE LAST WORD!" as we walked out of the agency.
Bottom line: do not, under any circumstances agree to take a tour with the Kampot – Hatien Travel & Transportation Agency. Even if you do go via mini-bus (or motor-cycle that does not break) it's simply not worth it. You can rent a motorbike on your own for $3.00-$5.00 for the day, spend $1.00-$3.00 on gas and easily find the park without a guide, especially when the guide doesn't tell you anything once you're walking through the Bokhor hill station itself. There are signs. There are other tourists you can ask directions from if you need to. (Furthermore, if you need a bus, they will also over-charge you on this. She quoted us $20.00 for a bus from Kampot to Battambang when our guesthouse only charged us $13.00)
Kampot is much prettier when it's not raining, you know where you are, where you're going, and you're not lugging your backpack around with you. We hung out on the riverside the whole day. First, in a cafe listening to the debate commentary (and waiting around for CNN to replay the debate- which we later found out only happened on American CNN) and then walking along the river, then receiving a $4.00 massage, and then dinner at a seafood restaurant directly over the river. Kampot's main attraction is… drumroll please… the riverfront.
The seafood restaurant was… ok. Andrew LOVES seafood, so we inevitably trek to a seafood restaurant when we're on an island or close to the sea. Unfortunately, we have yet to have an amazing meal at one of these aforementioned seafood restaurants close to (in some cases, right on the beach) the sea. Tonight's dinner was a lot of work. The crab was pretty tiny, and I'm pretty sure I ate more shell than I did meat. The 20+ (ok I exaggerate, but seriously there were a lot) waitresses could have cared less about being there, and I wasn't entirely confident walking across the wooden boards that provided the flooring over the river. At $4.00 a plate, I guess you can't complain too much, but we agreed once more that Andrew should probably stick to picking hotels, and I should probably stick to picking restaurants.
We had planned to go to Sihanoukville directly after our stay in Takeo. Four years ago, I missed out on this beach town and I was envious of travelers who I had met who gushed over how calm and pretty it was. I really wanted to go this time around to check it out. We actually spent the whole week debating how we were going to get there. We could take the bus back to Phnom Penh and then take another bus to Sihanoukville: $8.00 each for about a six hour day of transport. OR we could take a shared taxi directly from Takeo to Sihanoukville: $20.00 each for about a three hour day of transport. We went back and forth. Takeo was so cheap for us to stay the week, but $12.00 could pay for a night in an air-conditioned room in Cambodia!
“Why not go to Kampot instead?” Some new travelers to NFO suggested.They agreed with what everyone had said, Sihanoukville is no longer the calm, untouched town it was when I was in Cambodia last. So, we changed our minds and decided to go to Kampot via a shared mini-bus for $5.00. We laughed when we squeezed in among 18 other passengers in the shared mini-bus. Luckily, not all passengers were traveling the full hour to Kampot, and by the time we arrived in town, there were only 8 of us sitting comfortably in the mini-bus.
We were told it would be easy to walk from the drop off point to find different guesthouses in town or along the river. We weren’t told that the mini-bus might drop us off at a diffferent location, farther away from the round-about that was our point of reference. It was steadily raining when we arrived, we had already told the tuk-tuk drivers (that were asking if we needed a ride through the mini-bus window before we even came to a complete stop) that “NO! We don’t need a ride!” but after walking for 5 minutes in the rain, we really had no clue where we were going. I knew we weren’t going far, so I hollered after Andrew that I was getting into a tuk-tuk. We climbed in, I thought we were going to one guest-house, Andrew gave directions to another, and then the tuk-tuk driver totally ripped us off . (Btw, Cambodia operates on dollars and riels- so it’s always a bit tricky when you go to pay in a different currency than what was stated, and you almost always get change in both currencies. I know, it’s weird.) $3.00 for a tuk-tuk ride that should have been $1.00!?! And I know, it’s only $2.00, right? But in Cambodia, it’s different, and when I know I’m getting ripped off, these huge red flags go up and I get defensive.
So, we’re standing outside the tuk-tuk, Andrew is trying to get the driver down to $2.00, I’m asking the girl who came out of the guest-house how much it would be for one night, listening to Andrew get ripped off, and the girl says it’s a whole $8.00, I freak out. In my head, all I could think about was how Ernesto told us a room (at the guesthouse I thought we were going to) would be $5.00 and all I could think about was “Great. This woman is watching us get ripped off by the tuk-tuk driver, and thinks she can rip us off too… No. No. No, I’m not staying here for $8.00. I told her we could stay elsewhere for $5.00, but she didn’t budge. I stood under my umbrella indignant as all hell and she came down to $7.00, but no more. And then I made us walk across town, in the rain, to stay at the $5.00 a room guesthouse because I’m too stubborn for my own good. I could barely walk because my flip-flops were soaked and slippery, my Nalgene bottle smacking my legs hanging down from a zipper because my (horrible Osprey) backpack doesn’t have adequate water-bottle pockets, my tri-pod mount fell off my camera that was dangling from my arm – because I couldn’t fit it into my (horrible Osprey) backpack, so I practically fell over trying to pick it up out of a puddle, all while Andrew walked at least 30 steps ahead of me because a. his legs are twice as long as mine and b. he gets over-eager about finding places and doesn’t always remember to wait for my 12” shorter self to keep pace with him.
We got there, and the $5.00 a night room had a broken ceiling fan, so we decided to move to the $6.00 a night room with a working fan. So, in sum, I made us walk across town, in the rain, miserable, to save a whole $0.50 each. I am (not at all) awesome. Worse, we had lunch at the guesthouse restaurant and it was ridiculously over-priced, and not very good, especially compared to the amazing meal we had for dinner elsewhere. I pouted about our lack of solid communication, the tuk-tuk driver ripping us off, and my own stubbornness. We agreed to make sure we are on the same page about where we’re staying in the future, and I took a much needed nap. A short sleep, and a respite from the rain made me feel loads better. We walked to Rikitikitavi, a restaurant Matt recommended to us that proved to be amazing (and cheaper than the food at our guesthouse, I might add).
