Apparently I had a very different experience on my first night bus than most people. We got picked up at 10:30 pm and were boarding the bus about 11:15 pm. After one stop to use the restroom here's what happened. I turned my backpack so I was lying on all the zippers. I fell asleep. My friend woke me up and the bus ride was over. Sweet. Great. I could dig that.
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| Durien (smelly fruit) farm |
What I slept through was an incredibly bumpy noisy drive with several random stops on the side of the road for people to get out and use the restroom. And by restroom I mean nature. I think my version is much better. Really though, all credit goes to the virus or food poisoning that kept me up all night the night before my bus trip. If I hadn't been so exhausted who knows how much sleep I would have gotten on the bus.
I'm sure that won't be my last night bus, so I'll get back to you on that later.
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| Little beds for everyone on the bus! Hearts blanket included. |
I think Kampot will have a special place in my heart for quite a while on this journey. Why you may ask? I ate possibly the best meal of my trip here. You could watch them catch the crab. And then go eat it. Ohhhhh you fried crab you. My only complaint is that when the crags are small, its a very labor intensive meal. Try two hours of battling tiny crab legs with a fork. Life is hard folks.
I had heard so many things about Kampot that when I arrived I was not greeted with exactly what I expected. Instead of a bustling city, it was much sleepier town right on the river. It's very laid back and seemed to cater to a expat population more than backpackers or tourists. I did both a biking tour and a tuktuk tour. In both cases the tours were incredibly laid back with the tour guides that were much more like "here, I'm going to show you some random stuff that I know about." Turns out all the random stuff was pretty cool.
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| One of the main streets in Kampot |
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| Salt flats. |
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| Rice drying in the sun |
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| Rice harvest |
For the first time in my trip, I met someone who was genuinely excited that he was talking to people from the USA. In 1995 our tour guide had a teacher from the US who gave him free English lessons for quite a while, so logically he called me Teacher. By the end of the tour he was calling both of us on the tour Teacher and asking us questions.
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| Climbing up a coconut tree just to show us that he could |
His English was really good, and talking to him was a riot.
"How many children do you have?"
"Thirty"
"You do not."
*laughter*
"No, actually I have thirteen."
"....No you don't"
*More laughter*
"Ok. Yes, I have three children."
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| A fishing boat in a Muslim fishing village |
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| Kampot Pepper Farm-some of the best pepper in the world |
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| Peppercorns |
"Here, try this. It's a sweet chili."
"No it's not!"
*laughter*
"Yes it is. See look."
At this point he put a ridiculous amount of chili in his soup and proceeded to cough and sneeze his way through his soup.
"Yeah those chilies must be really sweet."
"Yes, yes they are!"
Props to him for sticking to his story.
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| Pushing the rice paste through little holes down into boiling water to make noodles |
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| These boys were going over to collect snails. There was a hole in the bucket so it was the middle boy's job to bail out the water |
This lovely little town is where I decided that the strict gluten-free diet would need to be put on hold. Cambodia was a French colony for a short time, and Kampot is full of French influence. It's really evident in the architecture and in the baguettes. Ohhhh the baguettes. All the tummy aches in the world are worth it. I'm currently up in another town that has a lot of French influence and I regret
nothing. And I will continue to regret nothing as I head to Vietnam to eat even more things.
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| This is how the palm sugar sap is collected from the tree |
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| Boiling down the palm sap |
One of my stomach's favorite thing about Kampot (and Cambodia in general) is that there are lots of shops run by NGOs that provide Cambodians with hospitality experience while serving some delicious Western food. A lot of the NGOs provide the training to people with disabilities or under-privileged pasts that would otherwise have difficulty finding jobs in the hospitality industry. Basically I can eat a bagel covered in hummus and a mountain of fresh veggies while knowing that my money is spent in a good way. Nom nom.
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| This rice farmer was truly out-standing in his field. |
