chillin in kampot

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well, actually i'm in siem reap, but i only just got here, so.......

i have been prompted to write another entry. told to get back to the task and all that. unfortunately there's no card reader here, so no photos for you just yet. that'll have to wait a couple of days.
anyway.

so, i left phnom penh at long last, with my ipod newly loaded up with music (sublime, nofx, nirvana, ani di franco, ozomatli and various others i'd been missing), and a piece of paper in my hand with the names of some guesthouses and restaurants to check out. i was headed to kampot, the town nestled in the province of the same name, in the south of cambodia.

the bus ride was one of the nicest i've had in a while. the bus wasn't anywhere near full, and i got a whole seat to myself. i stretched out leisurely and enjoyed the ride through nice scenery. we went past a lot of farms. i always find it really weird looking at fields full of grass, and rice paddies, and then seeing that they're surrounded by palm trees, and red dust. after australian and chinese farms it doesn't look quite right.

we arrived in kampot and were immediately beset by moto drivers. i managed to get one of them to listen to me, and he took me to bodhi villa, a little way out of town (about twenty minutes' sweaty walk). riding on a motorbike with my big heavy backpack strapped to my back, and holding tight to my smaller heavy backpack and guitar was an interesting experience. it was actually easier to balance than i feared, but i was still a little nervous when we went over the potholes.

i got to the villa in one piece, though, and was greeted by jonno, the lanky english bartender, who showed me a room. barb, from the lazy gecko, had told me to stay in a floating bungalow, and whilst they looked nice, they were also $8. not wanting to part with so much cash, i settled for a room inside for $4 instead.
bodhi villa is a quiet and relaxed sort of place. it's right on the river, and is staffed by a really great collection of people - the aforementioned jonno, young and chilled-out, jiat (no idea if i spelled that right, but never mind), a young khmer guy who can pull out some fancy dance moves and is very sweet despite perhaps fancying himself as a bit of a gangsta (he also speaks amazing english with a weird combo of southeast asian, british and american accents, with a dash of aussie "cheers mate!" for good measure), hugh and joss and baby william, the aussies who own the place and pop in and out regularly, dancing and drinking (hugh was, anyway), and making everyone feel at home, szi, another local guy who seemed to be a manager of sorts and was very concerned with making sure everyone was well looked-after, and then some local women who cleaned and cooked, as well as the security guard. i didn't get to know them so well, but the girls delighted in teasing jonno in khmer.

i spent my first afternoon and evening there reading one of the trashy books they had lying around, after taking a little walk around town to book a tour to bokor national park the following day. met some nice people, drank some drinks, chatted and retired early to bed, feeling tired from my bus trip, and knowing i'd have to get up early the next day.

the bokor national park trip was interesting. it wasn't quite what i expected, actually. i booked with wild orchid tours, who also have a guesthouse, and our guide was very friendly and knowledgeable, speaking excellent english and generally being very helpful. the tour began with two hours in the back of a ute (luckily on padded seats), bouncing up a 25km track, which went all the way up the mountain. slightly sore bums by the end, and i got whipped in the face by a couple of small branches when i didn't duck quickly enough (we had been warned, so it was entirey my fault). it was pretty tedious, but never mind. we saw some beautiful jungle scenery along the way.
the first summit we got to had some ruins which used to be the king's villa and kitchen and so forth, and is now a kind of basic sleeping and cooking area for the UXO-clearance staff. we saw a few of them on the way, hard at work with their metal detectors. our guide assured us that most of the mines were gone from this area, and that we wouldn't be in any danger if we followed the paths and so forth.

old buildings really fascinate me - the more decrepit the better - so it was cool to explore them for a little while. the surrounding area was quite plain, a little grasssland, which was a bit of a disappointment compared to the lush ride up. never mind, i thought.
we got back in the trucks and headed to the top, where we saw the ruins of a casino and hotel, as well as a catholic church (in the best condition of any of the buildings, strangely). the area we were at now, it was explained, used to be the town of bokor, and had very good access once upon a time. the casino used to be on the edge of the mountain, but was moved because of the high suicide rate of gamblers who couldn't pay their debts. then, when the khmer rouge arrived, everything changed. the villagers were moved out, and the fancy hotel was turned into a prison. it's now said to be haunted.

we had lunch next to this lovely spot, after checking out the edge of the cliff and the beautiful landscape below. i chatted to some fellow travellers. everyone continues to be amazed about the junkadelic/hong kong story, which is nice, although i feel like it sounds a bit formulaic now that i've told it so many times.
after lunch, we went back down the mountain a little way and did some trekking.

everything on the tour was timed to the minute. "now we have forty minutes of trekking. ok, everybody? now, if you don't want to do trekking, you can go down the hill in the car" (needless to say, everyone decided against getting back in the cars right away, as the way down was possibly even worse than the way up). the trekking was more of a march down a narrow track through the jungle. i was walking fast, as usual for me on short distances, which was probably a mistake, as i think i saw less that way. our guide did point out a chameleon (unfortunately no photo of that one, cos the path was too narrow to stop and allow other people to go past. i did get some shots of some fungus, though, which are especially for jess).

we sweatily descended the last of the track, and found the trucks waiting for us again. we went down the mountain, amidst discussion about tattoos and piercings (maybe i came across a little bit know-it-all, but hey, it's nice to be able to flaunt your "expertise" every now and then, even if it's not very extensive).

as we came back into town we got a nice dust bath. sunglasses quickly went on to protect sensitive eyes. i noticed my shoulders were a bit burnt, and hoped my face wasn't too bad. i didn't have a hat, and hadn't had time to get one, and we'd been in the sun all day.

i'd thought this was the end of the tour, but no, we got a boat ride back to the riverfront area with all the restaurants and so forth. about a third of the way in, we made a stop-off to deliver a rather ill and in pain frenchwoman to shore. she had been talking to her partner with increasing anxiety during the trip, and he and another lady had tried to give her some tablets - i'd thought she was seasick, but it turned out to be more likely to be food poisoning. the poor woman was dropped off and a car came to pick her up. i hope she ended up being ok.

the rest of the boat ride was pleasant and uneventful. boatloads of school kids coming home drifted past yelling "hello!" at us, and grinning cheekily.
we came to shore, coincidentally, just outside one of the restaurants i'd been advised to visit by barb. the prices were a little more expensive, but i thought i'd treat myself.
in the bathroom, washing the day's dust away, i noticed i'd acquired a rather fetching sunburn on my face - with a lovely goggle effect from my sunglasses. feeling stupid and vain, i tried to rub some dust from my feet into the white patches around my eyes and across my nose, but it didn't work. i slunk back to my table miserably, feeling very unattractive. jiat made me feel a bit better when i got back by saying i was very pretty, and that you could hardly notice. jonno agreed, but then started laughing saying, "ooooh, but it's worse from further away, that's hilarious!"
i resolved to sulk behind low lights and a black russian and hope that my olive skin would correct itself by the next day, and i'd be pleasantly (if blotchily) tanned the next day.

that theory turned out to work - thank goodness for a sallow complexion! i was feeling much better about myself, so i went out and bought an imitation dolce and gabbana hat (which i tried unsuccessfully to pick the labels off later), and a book, which i then left in the cafe. very irritating - it was getting really interesting, too, and was about 250 pages, so would last me at least a couple of hours.

apart from all that, nothing much to report. i never did get to jam with hugh, although i had a quick look at the music studio - complete with electric drum kit, electric piano, guitars, a bass, and computer setup. what a pity i never got to use it! i just poked my nose in this morning on my way out.

oh, that's right - i had my first cambodian 'share taxi' experience today. did you know you can fit four people in the front seat of an ordinary sedan? four grown men, at that? with two of them sitting on the driver's seat? no, neither did i. thank goodness it was an automatic.
four people in the back wasn't so bad, and that was where i was. i could have bought the whole front seat, but for $10 i thought i'd save my pennies. it was only just over two hours, and was really ok. at one point, a couple of thousand riel notes randomly blew in the back window and landed on me. i gave them to the lady next to me, who promised to give them to a beggar when she saw one.
i had a brief stopover in phnom penh, revisiting boeng kak and being propositioned by the 18-year-old girl who sold me my ticket to siem reap. she explained it was her birthday, and she loved me very much, so could she be my girlfriend? i said i hardly knew her and besides, she was too young. then my moto came and i drove off into the late morning sun.

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