Monday 27 July 2009

The moon's upside down

Cambodia gave us a rainbow when we arrived and we got one just before leaving Kampot, too!

First of all, (so long and) thanks for all the comments - it's great to hear from you all again and glad to hear your techno difficulty has been solved Dad!

So, Kampot town. Well, like nowhere we’ve been so far. I wrote to someone yesterday that it feels as though we’ve travelled Cambodia in chronological order: the ancient Khmer empire at Siem Reap, the terrible history of the Khmer Rouge at Phnon Penh, and now the contemporary complexity of Cambodia in Kampot.

Staying a while in each place that we travel is like making love to a beautiful woman, no, sorry, that’s a whole other show. It’s a bit like meeting people, first impressions are interesting and parts of them are absolutely correct, but other parts are way off.

As with Phnom Penh, I wasn’t sure about Kampot when we first arrived. This is a small town, smaller than Siem Reap, but it has a very tight knit community, and a large number of expats, both living here and running businesses, and working at the NGO’s and projects that exist everywhere here. In fact, it seems sometimes as if many businesses only manage to exist because of the westerners here, who can afford to spend at least triple what a local would pay for a cup of coffee, and, one should argue, rightly so.

The fishing village - very zen, and also very hard work, but then so is zen!

There’s something surreal about Kampot though, where an approximate 200 expats live and make a living, according to Steve, the owner of a local and highly recommended watering, feeding and sleeping spot, Bar Red, which specialises in the most amazing Indian food. It is second only to our own guest house, Blissful, which wins it for the sheer brilliance and friendliness of our international staff here, but more of that later. Steve is the founder and central contributor to The Kampot Survival Guide, an indispensible and highly tongue in cheek guide to the local environs. He is also familiar with Portsmouth, having lived there for a good few years in nearby Beach Road, spookily close to The Loft.

The beach at Kep - just like home, huh?

“Living in Beach Road and watching the local tourist trade there was what convinced me to never run a guest house,” he grinned wryly.

Everyone knows everyone in Kampot, it seems, and it has the feel of a more exotic international village as you might find in the English countryside somewhere. In the middle of the wet season as we are, we have only just missed 4 days continuous rain and accompanying flooding when we arrive, and the weather has been highly unpredictable during our visit. This was disconcerting at first, but soon grows on you, as you realise that everything you do or plan is entirely left to providence, which is actually the same as life back home, but without the illusion of control.

Professional rice farmers at work - and this is very hard, hot, arduous work. In the mud.

Maybe in part because of the weather, maybe because we love Cambodia and don’t want to leave so have slowed our pace to a crawl, we spend our time in Kampot leisurely, getting to know the international crew who run the guest house – A Dutch owner, a French barman who personifies cool as smoke pours slowly from his nose and a cigarette hangs elegantly from his mouth (it’s enough to make me want to smoke again. Almost.), English and Khmer staff – and exploring the wide range of bars and cafes that make up the town. Our new local best friend though rapidly becomes Kate, a beautifully laid back woman who has also spent some days in Portsmouth and is a Hampshire girl herself.

“It’s nice to hear the Pompey accent again,” she tells us, with calm, half-lidded eyes, “I was at uni there actually and got to know it quite well. Actually someone the other day told me he went to college in Southampton and my first reaction was to call him a scummer.....”

Sunset on the Sunset Boat Tour

We’ve also spent a good few hours in Sisters II, a sister cafe to Sisters Cafe in Phnom Penh, both of which are run by women who were raised in the same orphanage in Cambodia’s own Portsmouth, Sihanoukville. The owner tells us the inspiring and hard to listen to story of how she came to be in Kampot from a childhood growing rice in Vietnam, and Kate and I are rapt.

A few days ago, we climbed – and I mean climbed – Bakor Mountain, one of the Elephant Mountains, which are so named because they look like, er, elephants really. I don’t know what I thought two and a half hours walking on the sign referred to when we booked our places on the bus – which turned out to be an open backed trunk – or why they might call it the wet season, but the walk referred to a two and a half hour CLIMB, and I mean CLIMB, which almost had me in tears halfway up demanding to be airlifted out, but again, Kate, Steve Hender’s positivity training and a Vietnamese traveller I met in Phnom Penh who taught to me to chant as a Pure Land Buddhist (a long, beautiful story and one that inspired my first fiction piece written travelling – how exciting) got me to the top...

The pepper plantation, very peaceful and peppery.

....where we took another and very bumpy open truck ride – seriously, I didn’t know what hanging on for dear life meant until this ride. Mark, a 25 year old civil engineer from Norwich, who reminded me of Howard with his “Oh really?” - who is also out for his first trip round SE Asia, but he’s been out since January and only goes home briefly next March for his brother’s wedding - laughed a lot at my constant stream of giggles on the truck.

“How can you find this funny?” he said as I bounced along, squeezed behind a French family and ridiculously close to the back and perched on the edge of a tyre, my position so tenuous that each time I bounced, I thought I was going to fly off the back.

And this is what a pepper plant actually looks like. Really!!

I told him about a discovery I made riding the moto cross country with Pisith.

“Because when I’m really afraid, I seem to laugh a lot,” I cackled.

“Attagirl!” he replied.

“Although I think I’m also enjoying this way more than I should be,” I pointed out.

It was all worth it when we arrived though.....

The weather on the boat tour really cheered up, which allowed us to really take in the sheer beauty of the countryside rolling by.

...and found an abandoned ghost city, the abandoned summer palace of Sihanouk, the Cambodian king and the abandoned casino resort (including post office, casino and hotel) of the French occupation, which was later used by the Khmer Rouge as a hideout, prison and then execution spot. We got soaked. Royally soaked. Although Larry's huge poncho put a valiant fight! But the atmosphere of the abandoned mountain in the mist and the rain, the kind generosity of our soaked through the skin 21 year old Khmer guide, Bunner, and the laughter of the rangers when we dripped into the station, all combined to make it worthwhile.

We sat, dripping and gently steaming in the comparative warmth of the rangers’ station listening to the Khmer ranger whip through a history of the Bokor mountain at great speed.

“Of course, you know when Khmer Rouge use casino as a prison, it not really a prison,” he asked our blank faces.

“No, I don’t know,” I answer.

“Because when Khmer Rouge in power, all of Cambodia a prison,” he tells us sombrely.

The surf and shingle at Kep

But the ranger is saving the best for last.

“You not walking back down the mountain,” he announces.

I feign disappointment, although the prospect of doing some of the steep climbs I slid down twice on the way up has had my stomach churning for most of our visit to the top. He smiles at me in broad disbelief.

“No, it is better, I not happy you climb down because of rain. Too heavy. Maybe landslides.”

Oh good, let’s leave that then, I think, looking around me and trying to picture myself living here until the dry season kicks in in a few months.

“I arrange a truck for you, instead. Bumpy and a long way down, but better.”

“Are you sure?” I think, looking wistfully at a hook in the corner, where I think Larry’s poncho will look splendid until the return of the sun, and waving goodbye to my Sound of Music fantasy once more.

An elephant mountain - see the resemblance? It's asleep......

He is sure. And of course when the truck arrives, it is, yes, an open backed truck. In the pouring rain, we climb over tarpaulin covered sand and tools, to find the shallowest puddle on the back of the truck. Within seconds of sitting down, the three of us are laughing hysterically, while I try to sing “Wouldn’t it be lovely” from My Fair Lady while keeping a straight face. From his snug spot inside the truck, the driver glances nervously at us from time to time as if we might attack at any moment.

There is a strange zen about being soaking wet and freezing cold and bumping along in a hard floored truck down a mountain at speed for over two hours. Believe it or not, we all slept for about an hour, rain pouring down our already wet faces (and into various crevices). I fell into an odd state somewhere between meditation and sleep, which was a bit like being stoned, except I could remember it afterwards. In short, I found a place in my heart and mind where everything was absolutely ok and always will be, no matter what happens.

Here’s Tom with the weather.

As well as our day trip to the mountain and national park, we have taken the opportunity to venture into the Kampot countryside and nearby beach resort of Kep.

Much to the amusement of local farmers, Kate and I tried our hand at planting rice in a rice field. You would not believe how muddy an endeavour this is, although I got a strangely kinky thrill from the feel of the mud between my feet. I am not sure what the locals thought we were doing exactly, but I think we may have formed the basis for many a dinnertime anecdote that night.

The not so professional rice farmers. And that man in the background? Five minutes later, he was accompanied by the village.

We were guided around the local caves by a gaggle of young men who practised their English on us and their French on me (though all I taught them was “a little bit, very slowly”, which is my usual answer to ‘Can you speak French?’ and I’m not sure how they’re ever going to use that phrase....). The highlights of these caves were stalagmites and stalactites shaped like elephants and one shaped like a special lady bit.

“This one my favourite,” he told me sincerely.

“Really, gosh, well, that’s lovely isn’t it,” I murmured.

Our guide for the day, Dat, took us to a local fishing village, which I was enchanted by. The fishing village is predominantly Muslim, which is unusual in this area, and each afternoon, at around 4pm, the fishermen head out in their boats down the river and out to sea. They head about 30km out to sea, where they cast wide nets and drag them along behind for about 1km, stopping every so often to haul in their catch or to move to a different spot and they don’t return home until the early hours of each morning. When we visit in the mid morning the place is deserted as everyone is sleeping. The fishing village has an atmosphere and a beauty all its own and lines the river down to the sea.

Naked lady on Kep Beach. It wasn't me.

We went to a pepper plantation before taking in a few hours in Kep. We ate fresh peppers from the vine (is it a pepper vine? Answers on a comment slip or email please....), which taste, well, just like pepper actually, and bought some to bring home.

“Rick Stein recommends Kampot pepper,” says Kate with great authority.

Kep is not to everyone’s taste, but it is popular with local Khmer who use it as a weekend beach resort and I rather like the slim, brown and marbled beaches and the women who line the promenade with food stalls, putting their fingers to their lips as we pass and calling, “Madame, Yum-Yum?” as they offer food to us.

Our entirely unflappable boat driver

But the highlight of our Kampot holiday has to be the Sunset Boat Tour we take on a tiny wooden boat with a thin bamboo roof down the river to watch the sun do exactly what it says on the tin. Although we start off in typical rainy season downpour, wondering what the hell we are doing – again – within ten minutes we are in blazing sunset downriver for some of the most amazing views of the Elephant Mountains, and the communities that live beside and make their living from the river.

Sights I will never forget? Two men in a boat, dragging an utterly forlorn looking cow behind them – if he couldn’t swim at the start, he soon learnt; a man still sat on his motorbike being ferried across the river in canoe; a sad dog that howled from one bank as his master crossed to the other; more smiling and laughing children and a sunset that left my heart and soul, for such a long, unforgettable moment, at peace.

Kampot River, wider than a mile......

Roger that.

And here’s some Fiona Apple for you. Don’t say I didn’t send you something from Cambodia.


3 comments:

  1. loved your post. loved the song. thepictures make me want to be there right now. cannot wait to hear your tales, see your pictures. that coffeebean xxxxx

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  2. An amazing read as always. was good to chat the other day and i hope the others arent too sick of wombling about! The sunset looks amazing. Cant wait to see all you pics when you get back over a very large bottle of wine.

    H x

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  3. Hey gorgeous,

    wow sexual violence over a stalagmite eh? I can see i need to come out immeidately and do a recky for work!!

    Great post as always.

    Love you Shon xxxxxxxx

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