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4 or so hours later we arrived in Kampot. We were bombarded with tuk-tuk drivers and hotel touts competing for our business with the only other tourist on the bus made a quick escape. We agreed to go with one guy to see a hotel, but after seeing it decided to take a look at the one we had picked out of the guidebook which turned out to be nicer – Orchid Guesthouse. We had our own little wooden bungalow with two big beds and a bathroom. It was quite cute. We took advantage of the very rusty but free bicycles offered by the guesthouse and cycled round town. We stopped off at the Rusty Keyhole for some food. Back in Laos we had been tipped by another English couple that the ribs here were amazing – they were most definitely the best ribs we have ever had.
We cycled over to the market which is really for the locals and there was nothing of interest to us, although we stirred up quite a bit of interest among the local stall owners. The weather had been rubbish all day and it was still drizzling so we went back to our
bungalow and watched the rest of The Event season 1 that we had bought in Phnom Penh.
In the evening we took a walk into town where we were almost attacked by a couple of fierce looking dogs until some guy on a motorbike, in leathers and helmet, came out of nowhere and revved his engine at them, scaring them off. He asked us where the riverfront was, we pointed and he sped off into the darkness. It was a rather surreal 30 seconds or so….
When we reached the riverfront we went straight to one of the many massage places and bought ourselves a massage with a difference – the masseuses here are blind. We both had hour long full body massages from a couple of guys who were chatty and spoke quite good English. They couldn’t believe it when we told them how much people pay for massages in England – this was costing $4 per person!
We had originally wanted to go up to Bokor Hill Station, one of the main attractions in the area. Once in Kampot however, we had found out that the only way to get up there is to hike
for 1 ½ hours up and then 1 hour back down. We really just weren’t feeling that, especially in the rain! We had also heard that they were starting to redevelop the hill station again (the main appeal being that it’s a ‘ghost town’) which put us off somewhat. So we decided that we would leave in the morning and when we left the guesthouse at 6am there was no one to be seen. Kampot itself seems a little bit of a ghost town at times. We only saw a handful of backpackers here and not many more locals. Restaurants, shops and bars sit next to abandoned old buildings that look like no one could have entered in a long time.
We took the 40 minute bus to Kep, disappointed about not getting to the Hill station but glad that we now had an extra day, and that the next two days would be spent doing absolutely nothing!
Deb & Ang
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