This could be Rotterdam, or anywhere. Liverpool or Rome. ‘Cause Rotterdam is anywhere, anywhere alone.
– ‘Rotterdam’, The Beautiful South (presumably in reference to Potpats)
When you’re schlepping around Asia, you have those occasional days which are long, hard and, basically, rubbish. Our exit from Koh Kood towards Koh Kong City in Cambodia started well enough – our expected speedboat turned out to be an old school passenger ferry, which slowed us down somewhat but meant for an enjoyable sunny morning cruise through the archipelago sat in prime position on the top deck. Back at Trat, we came across the Bossy Minivan Driver, a vintage Asian travel character. The exact moment he has a full compliment of punters (i.e. when four gringos, including Rach and I, show up), the minivan has to leave immediately. Ignoring his hints, we divided to conquer in picking up water and food after the long cruise, only to be barked at for making the van wait and be told we can’t eat on board. A young French guy we’d picked up on the way was forced to down his nuclear hot noodle soup under the wrathful gaze of this tyrant. Ironically of course, if we hadn’t walked up, the van would be parked there, Thai contingent glumly waiting, with no prospects of departure for who knows how long. Our border crossing ran perfectly smoothly, but our first experience of Cambodia proper was The Lying Tuk Tuk Driver. I won’t go into details – let’s just say Rach lost her shit and doesn’t need the bad publicity – but it was with some relief that we tucked into a couple of ice cold, sunset Cambodian lagers at Ritthy’s Guesthouse. One of those “what exactly are we doing here?” evenings followed before, essentially, Cambodia pulled it out of the bag and charmed our pants off.
Before I continue, let me tell you about this man Ritthy – our host and tour operator extraordinaire. We estimate early 30s, winning smile, masterful demeanour, and never seen without his shoulder bag containing at least three mobile phones which never stop ringing. The man is the Richard Branson of Koh Kong. We watched him pull the strings of the morning shift – people wanting breakfasts, people leaving in tuk tuks to bus stations, people leaving on boats from the riverside, people asking him last minute to join his tours – his pulse never got above 85. At one point, I swear he had four phone calls on the go. It’s hardly a surprise that we booked an overnight jungle tour through him. We never really stood a chance.
To be fair, my sole aim for Koh Kong (by the way, best Cambodian city name by far – sadly no giant monkeys swinging from skyscrapers, but a lovely relaxed riverside ambience instead) was to spend a night in a hammock in the jungle. Once built-in mosquito nets were confirmed and I’d kept the ice cold lager coming, I had Rach on board. We departed the next morning on the backs of motorbikes, with our guide Dena – an initial introvert who went on to become an absolute gasbag and general “good lad”. Conversation was enlightening – covering how he’d taught himself English in 3 years, the jobs he did across the year to make money for his house renovation, his views on the upcoming election and even an insight into the views of the first generation post-Khmer Rouge on those deeply troubled years. He showed some emerging wild survival form in teaching us how to make a rain shelter, and was a dab hand with spotting wildlife (gibbons!). He also later accidentally revealed his nickname as Bao, meaning “rice sack” in Cambodian – a childhood nickname relating to the roly poly gluttony of his early years…. but, as far as jungle life skills, wildlife divination and nicknames go, he still had a lot he could learn from Mr Whisky.
On arrival at our brilliant riverside camp, we merged groups with a great Belgian couple Angelique and Frederic, who were undertaking two nights camping and had spent the day with Mr Whisky – so named for his penchant for swigging from his hip flask from breakfast til lights out. This guy was the real deal Cambodian Bear Grylls. Wherever we skidded and Dena tottered on slippery rocks, Mr Whisky jogged across bare foot. A hundred percent sinewy muscle, I would have put him at about 30 years old – he said 44. He put our hammocks up in a matter of seconds while we tarted about post waterfall swim, before turning his hand to preparing barbecued chicken over open flames. In the evening as the tourists lazed around the fire, and perhaps with his booze intake getting the better of him, he took to jumping into rock pools and bringing us various hand-caught fish and crustaceans with a triumphant roar of “EAAAAT!!”. This and whisky were the only English words he knew. He wore a cap saying “F**k Life”. I will never forget him.
The hike into the lower foothills of the Cardamom Mountains wasn’t hugely taxing, but was an excellent reset after the initial Cambodian welcome. We survived the night unscathed and, after visiting the impressive Tatai waterfall en route back to Koh Kong, we hit the lager and cocktails hard with our new Belgian amigos. An evening was completed with more miscellaneous BBQed meats on the river side, a mammoth session of Backpacker, and the booking of a shared taxi to Sihanoukville the next morning.
We’d been warned off a visit to Cambodia’s prime beachside city by multiple friends, and weren’t interested in the island options so soon after our Koh-jaunting. Somewhat fascinated by the Cambodian seaside still, we decided though to skip the city entirely and hit up Otres Beach a few kms south. It’s always a little tedious to write about beach downtime – we swam, we lounged, we ate etc etc – but we were very pleasantly surprised by Otres. We’d gone nuts and booked a place on Otres II with a pool, an inspired move confirmed by our first sight of its nighttime light-show. It’s hard not to be emotionally moved by a swimming pool with a Rivers Of Blood setting…
Rach flexed her impressive sailing muscles by taking me out for a late afternoon spin on a catamaran, and we had our first taste (followed by many more) of 50 cent beers. Our last day saw us move up the coast to Otres I and an excellent backpacker hangout hostel, where we rode out another enormous day-long storm reading books, writing blogs and feeling old. Still, what’s not to like about sunsets and pizza? Did I mention the 50c beers?
Our final southern destination was the small city of Kampot. Not only another excellent name for a place of residence, but also just one of those leisurely, quiet riverside towns which still hold a post-colonial charm. Quite quickly after arriving, we started to sense there was something a little different about Kampot. The cafes were full of ageing hippies and middle aged Westerners of a multitude of nationalities conversing over a beer or iced coffee. We discovered the term “Potpat” when we stumbled across the tongue-in-cheek Kampot Survival Guide magazine, and realised that what felt different was that expats hugely outnumbered backpackers in this town – a rare phenomenon indeed outside the Asian capitals. We could understand the attraction – Kampot definitely felt the most liveable place we’d visited so far, with great cafe culture, an English language cinema, a microbrewery with very decent outputs and we even had chance to take in a comedy night! (lowpoint: South African compère addressing a Costa Rican as a “fellow African”)…. but I couldn’t help but wonder where all these people had come from, how long they spend here, or indeed how long they’d been here. It was the first time it properly dawned on me that we’re en route to starting an expat life of our own, a move made by choice and with a comfortable fall back plan if it goes wrong. With all these middle aged expats, I found myself musing what their back stories were….and if they had anywhere else to go back to.
After sizing up transport options, we decided the most sensible option for exploring the surrounding countryside, the famed Kampot pepper plantations and the seaside town of Kep was to hire a moto. Aaaah, how often decisions can seem less sensible in retrospect! Despite the amount of time spent indoors in Sihanoukville, we apparently hadn’t clocked it had been raining a lot recently. It turns out two inexperienced motorbike drivers on the same motorbike bouncing along waterlogged narrow mud roads doesn’t make for an enjoyable cruise. Thanks to some guile and nerve, and with rather sore posteriors, we made it to La Plantation – a joint Belgian-French social venture combining free farm tours and fine dining with genuine large scale pepper production, and ploughing profits back into local community investments. It was inspiring to see such a great setup – especially one where the staff and local school children appeared to be so well cared for – and left me thinking about our friends The Holtons at Brissenden Vineyard in Kent and what socially conscious agri-venture we could set up when I’m bored of maths and Rach has made our millions. Perhaps I could turn the entire SE20 back garden into one spud monoculture and bring chip-based happiness to the good people of Penge. That’s right, the stuff dreams are made of.
Perhaps still lost basking in this idyllic future, we took the quite absurd decision to save time and take an even-more-back-road shortcut through to Kep. It turns out, to our astonishment, that you can’t drive a motorbike through a knee-deep quagmire. Thankfully, after much heaving, revving and sloshing around in lovely warm mud, we managed to get the bike out and were soon after overjoyed by the sight of the highway. The good people of Kep were overjoyed by the sight of two idiot Westerners coated in mud, and took great pleasure in power-hosing our steed, our shoes and our socks, while we filthied up their bathroom, for the princely sum of 2,000 riel (about 37p). We’d learned our lesson, sticking to the main roads on our tour of Kep, including the crab markets and the old Sailing Club (the last photo look familiar, Mum?!)…
The rest of our time in Kampot was spent on foot and two wheels of the manually propelled variety. It was during a languid cycle along the river north of town, “hello hello!” ringing in our ears from kids en route home from school, that Rach announced that she’d fallen for this country big time. It felt like we’d come a long long way since the “what exactly are we doing here?” evening…
Next time: Cambodge part two – the big cities…
The Ibb Jag Jaunt 