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Monday 26th June Paul - Left Phnom Penh on the late bus to Kampot at about 1pm. A good reason for the late bus - we are lazy and couldn't be bothered to get up for the early one. Not that this should be a problem, the bus only takes 2 hours. Even factoring in delays we'd surely be there by about 4pm. Surely...
We were the only English speakers on the bus so as 4pm came and went I looked at Laura with slight concern. When would we be arriving in Kampot? Is this even the bus to Kampot? Why do I always need the toilet on these buses? Has that guy got TWO pigs on his motorbike?
Another 20 minutes later we pulled into Kep, a extremely tiny beach side village where we were tempted to get off. A few hotel touts hovered round the bus and we nearly decided to spend a night there. It's supposedly a lovely little beach town but it looked decidely run down to me so we decided to skip it. Later in Kampot we would speak to a few people who had spent a night there and we were glad
Here's Johnny!
I don't believe in ghosts, but that is an eery patch of light cast on the wall that we didn't notice until I took the photo!we didn't stay.
Half an hour later we arrived at a bridge over a river, about 5km from Kampot. Only the bridge had collapsed. Completely. I should say at this point that our 'road' down here was little more than a mud track with a lot of pot holes. We were struggling along at about 30kph. Apparently we had to get off and walk from here around the bridge and over the river. I think one of the guys on the bus was trying to tell us that the bridge would be fixed in 6 months time, then presumed that we would be overjoyed at this news! The better news was that another bus would pick us up from the other side of the river.
To cut a long story short we met a couple of English guys who guided us to the guesthouse they were staying at and we decided to stay next door as it was cheaper. A dollar cheaper. We're turning into super savers. We haggle over about 5 pence all the time. The locals must think we're right little shits.
Had dinner with the two English guys and booked a truck to take
us to Bokor National Park tomorrow with them. We left our restaurant just as it got dark and wandered back towards our guesthouse. A few problems then arose.
Problem One: It was pitch black
Problem Two: No street lights in Kampot as there wasn't much electricity after 10pm
Problem Three (the most major problem): There were a lot of dogs roaming the streets and from what we could hear, these dogs loved to bite and fight each other.
We edged slowly back towards our guesthouse while a dog, which we couldn't see, barked and barked at us. Our hearts were beating fast and we strode past, pretending not to be scared. Slammed the gate behind us as the dog came bounding up to it, barking and baring it's teeth...great. Our lovely hotel manager informed us that the dogs don't bite foreigners...just locals!! And if we felt unsafe, just take a stick!
Tuesday 27th June Paul - An early start this morning as the trip up to the plateau of Bokor would take 2 hours. It is Cambodia's largest protected area and has only recently been opened to visitors because of Khmer Rouge activity up in
the hills. Don't want you to worry though Mum, they left about 6 years ago! The main attractions are the abandoned French hill station and Popokvil Falls. Bokor Hill Station was abandoned in 1970 when Khmer Rouge forces took over and made it their base. It has been uninhabited since. It is basically a ghost town complete with casino, post office, church and most spookily of all - a grand colonial hotel, The Bokor Palace. As the guide book says, it is straight out of "The Shining".
As this is Asia our truck pulled up and 9 of us clambered into the open back. Yep, you read that right. Nine people. Bokor was only about 2km away but the road up to the top was 35km long and is one of the worst I have ever seen. I can't put anything into words what would do this road justice, it looked like a bomb had hit it - every three metres!
Suffice to say we got thrown around alot in the back. And I have the bruises to prove it. But that didn't matter as the journey up to the top was fantastic. The jungle was attempting to
take back the road at every corner and we all had to duck and dive every few minutes to miss various bits of foliage! As Laura said, it felt like Jurassic Park. Massive trees and huge spiders dotted every corner. Although I don't think Laura was happy about the spider part. They were the size of rats. And they were yellow. And they spun their webs across the road so you had to duck to miss them. If you didn't duck, there was a good chance you'd get one on your face. Yeah, I suppose most people wouldn't like that.
Arrived at Bokor Black Palace first which was the king's old residence. We were about half way up and the views were incredible! Jungle stretching all the way out to the sea. It was breath taking. The Palace was a bit dull, we were looking forward to the ghost town at the top and had no real interest in this random stop over. This is when our tour guide tried to pull the first of his many scams. He said the water was too low to go on our boat trip later but luckily another couple from Sunderland had
overheard him telling something different to the people riding in front. So we knew he was lying. Suddenly the boat trip was back on!
Back in the truck and another 30 minutes later we arrived at Bokor Hill Station, the old abandoned ghost town. It was great. A real ''ghost town'' feel to it, just like in the movies. Felt like being in the Blair Witch Project, especially when you had to wander off by yourself to go to the toilet. Spooky! We looked around an old church where the Khmer Rouge were based in the 1990's and then moved on to the hotel - straight from a horror film! Eerie corridors and creaking doors, it was great. All the rooms were completely ruined and had broken windows and old shower cubicles. Some of them had what looked like blood stains on the tiled walls. The view from the penthouse suite was amazing! Down in the basement it was almost pitch black. We had to use our camera flash to light up the rooms, half expecting to see a dead body on camera when we did so!
Our guide then tried to pull another cracking con, he reckoned
as it was rainy season we wouldn't be able to see the waterfall. We all just laughed at him and 10 minutes later we were on our way to the waterfall. A short hike through the jungle (without any tigers unfortunately) brought us to end of a river which led into a huge waterfall. We couldn't actually see the falls so our guide suggested wading through the river to the other side... the only problem was we would be wading through the river about 2 metres from the edge of the falls! Errrr... no thanks! See the attached photo for how dangerous this was.
He FINALLY took us an easier way round which still involved wading through the river, without the danger of course, and a short hike later and we were at the bottom of the falls. They were a two-tiered waterfall dropping about 30 metres so they were pretty spectacular. Our tour guide was keen to hurry us along so we were back across the river in no time. Apparently it was take us two hours to get down and with our boat trip in three hours surely we would have ample time to get there...
Now I'm not about to suggest our tour guide faked our truck braking down (well actually I am) but ten minutes later our brakes mysteriously failed. So there we were, stranded at the top of the mountain with no one insight. Time ticked by and our driver sat scratching his head while looking under the bonnet. He didn't actually do anything, just sat there scractching his head and staring at the engine. It was all pretty funny.
Suddenly we were all ushered back into the truck and we were on our way again. Apparently the driver would be using his gears to brake all the way down. Now not being a car expert I don't know how dangerous that is, but judging by the way the driver cheered (yes, lept out of the truck and cheered) when we got to the bottom, I'd guess fairly dangerous. The trip down was fantastic though, I saw a huge eagle and an even bigger black cobra slithering across the road. Sped along the dirt track and down to the docks, which closely resembled the "docks'' at Cleethorpes boating lake. In fact, there are probably more boats at Cleethorpes boating lake. A beach
would have been a more appropriate term. Clambered into a tiny little wooden boat with a propeller that would struggle to move a fish, never mind 10 people. Headed along the coast, very very slowly due to our propeller and back towards Kampot. We would be arriving as the sun was setting along the river banks so it was very pretty. Our tour guide sat at the front of the boat sulking, obviously he hadn't managed to con anyone today and he was thoroughly disappointed with himself.
Arrived back at our hostel and had a cold shower and dinner.
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Marr
non-member comment
Jesus
That patch of light isn't a just a ghost, it's the holy ghost, our lord and saviour