Day 294 - Kampot & Bokor Hill Station

Creepy...



Two hours in a taxi (i love saying that. let me say it again. 2 HOURS IN A TAXI) later and we arrive in the tiny town of Kampot. This place is mental. We're checked into a hostel opposite the marketplace to the town - a run-down, corrugated-iron-roofed, open sewerage, stinking pit of a market. Despite the allure of a wide, flowing river, its murky stagnant waters around the town's main road are off-putting and the dusty unpaved roads don't do my asthmatic lungs any favours. But the town is remotely charming in its rustic beauty.



Sam and I head off to explore for a while, leaving eve to recover some sleep she lost this morning to a hangover, and find ourselves inside a buddhist monastry, speaking very bad french to a well-dressed monk. The monastry is beautiful, although a bit tacky. But we're silenced as we wander around and snap photos of the sculptures of multiple-headed snakes and giant rainbow-coloured buddhas.







Kampot is much like any other outback, third world village close to a tourist attraction (i.e. Uyuni [launch pad for the bolivian salt flats], Aguas Calientes [machu picchu], Latacunga [cotopaxi]) - its awake at 4am, with the sounds of cocks crowing in your ears and saws cutting wood next to your bedroom window, is lacking in everything you need (i.e. pharmacies, internet cafes close by) and completely shuts down (streets lights included) by 10pm. Eve and I resort to wandering the streets to fend off our insomnia until midnight, despite the only light being the full-moon peering down at us, almost laughing at our misfortune.



Anyway, we're not here for Kampot. We're here for Bokor Hill Station. About 20kms away from Kampot, its the site of the last Khmer Rouge stronghold, and is now a collection of fog-shrouded derelict buildings that attract 40-odd tourists every day. Sam's nervous - she doesn't want to mount a motorbike to get there, but it seems all transport is done in the back of a jeep, so we sign up and in the morning are heading off at 9am.



We're on the sort of excursion that 50-year-olds would probably do - trip to some derelict buildings, nice views, sunset river cruise to end the day. But most 50-year-olds don't do this. Because the site of the Bokor Hill Station is located an hour away from Kampot up a mountain, on an unpaved road. And when I say unpaved, I MEAN unpaved. Literally, the worst road I've ever ridden. And do we do it in the comfort of a bus? Or a car? No. On the back of a pickup-truck, with a flat metal panal as our seat. 20 minutes into the journey, we're all still laughing. But after 40 minutes, with brown faces from the dust, whipped skin from the hanging brances and a sore arse from the hard seats and bad road, the novelty has well and truly worn off.

An hour later, we all happily dismount the truck and wander around what is the dullest, most unimpressive remains of a derelict "palace". Its not a palace. Its smaller than a public toilet block and under no stretch of the imagination would be a palace. Still, the place is rotting so much it kinda looks a bit eerie, and the khmer graffitti is wicked.



We also got to see the 'AMAZING' view over cambodia, vietnam and the gulf of thailand. It was rubbish. and apparently this is a clear day.



And then another 30 minutes in the truck later we're dropped to trek through the mountain. In fact we just wandered a path in the woods for 20 minutes, and sat and listened to a guy speaking english - not that we knew that for ages because he was completely unintelligible - about how Pol Pot was actually a good guy (he wasn't. this guy is clearly deluded).

And then, 20 minutes later, we're dropped outside probably the only impressive part of the day. Right, I know I sound miserable. I know that. And we had fun at the time. But in hindsight, it was so rubbish. This massive mansion, impressive merely because of its size, is completely derelict, with everything (right down to every scrap of wallpaper) having been looted, leaving a shell of a building. Its supposed to be haunted but honestly, its just kinda dull. That said, to its credit it is perched on the edge of a plateau so the whole area is shroaded in cloud as it slips over the promontory. That's about as spooky as it gets.







we wandered the house for a while, like kids exploring an abandoned shed. But ultimately it doesn't excite me, or anyone else for that matter, enough to warrent the sore backside from the journey up here, and after a quick walk around an equally derelict church (i love churches), we're heading back down the mountain, laughing stupidly as how painful the journey is.









A quick boat ride down the Mekong river is nice, as the sun sets, and before long we're onto dry land again. Our guide managed to pull me aside for 10 minutes on the boat to (a) ask if I have a girlfriend, (b) ask if I have "boom boom"ed with her and (c) tell me that he's 24 and yet to "boom boom" with a girl because he never has permission from his father. I'm sure I could make some interesting social commentary on the lack of pre-marital sex in developing countries, but I can't be arsed right now. Fact is - they don't seem to be doing it as much as us slutty westerners. Its probably a good thing.





Anyway, a few drinks with Henry and the belgian girls later (who I LOVED) and we're off to bed, ready for a bus back to Phnom Penh in the morning. Its all part of our cambodia tour, taking in the capital a second time on our way north, and we're all kinda excited about it. More street kids, more street dogs and more street meat. Perfect.