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Published: October 27th 2011
Up bright and early it was time for Danni and I to move on from Phnom Penh.. As sad as the place can be, I have to admit that over the past three visits to this city, it really has grown on me… there are some fabulous restaurants and during the day it can be quite a pretty city along the riverfront.
Upon heading for our bus, all the tuktuk guys that sit out the front of Blue Lime started yelling to us ‘there’s Sambo there’s Sambo’ .. we turned around to see Sambo up the end of the alley… Teasing all the boys, we yelled out to Sambo “Bye Sambo… See you next time” in little girly voices… He would have blushed I am sure.. and the boys all got a good giggle out of it!
Piled into a minibus we were transported to a coach bus before settling in for a 4/5 hour ride to Kampot. The scenery along the way was stunning and I spent a good portion of the trip taking photographs… Upon arriving in Kampot we were jumped on by a horde of tuktuk drivers and we grabbed one and set off to Olly’s
Place.
I found Olly’s Place on Trip Advisor and it had stunning reviews.. it was only $7 a night for your own little wooden bungalow and located on the river. While you wouldn’t expect much for $7 a night, the website of Olly’s reflected a GREAT place so we were super excited to get there. The little bungalows were cute, but upon seeing the shared bathrooms and the rundown ‘chill out area’ I was a tad disappointed. Usually the reviews on Trip Advisor get it right, and I suspect there are a few reviews from Olly’s friends and family on there.
We were greeted by a bubbly and vivacious Aussie, Donna; who informed us that Olly was away until the following day but she would be looking after the place. She is just one of those great travellers you meet when travelling that you ‘click’ with straight away… While chatting to her, we observed that the tuktuk driver had come down the sand driveway to try turn around, rather than turning on the road at the end of the driveway. He was now bogged in the sand! Danni, Donna and I went up to help him get it
out of the sand… Ignoring our suggestions he drove it further into the property and as he stood next to his bike and steered it, all three of us were at the back pushing (and panting!).
All of a sudden the driver stops dead in his tracks. We all pretty much said at the same time “what are you doing” and in all seriousness this young 20yo strong handsome tuktuk driver turned to us and he said “oh me soooo tired” …. With that, all three of us burst out laughing and at the same time were like “what???? You’re tired??? We are the ones pushing the damn tuktuk” .. it was one of those priceless travel moments..
After the tuktuk driver eventually left, we went down to the deck area and had a few beers and chatted to Donna. An incredible inspiring person, Donna is a 30 something chick currently living in Kep and in the process of building a resort with her best mate, Scott. She previously worked for Olly and does the occasional fill in if he needs help/goes away.
We thought about staying in for dinner, but due to Olly being away, the
kitchen wasn’t open, so we got a recommendation from Donna and headed to Bokor Mountain Lodge for dinner and sunset drinks over the river. When there, the discussion of Olly’s came up. Danni was more than happy to stay at Olly’s but I wasn’t overly stoked at the amount of bugs I would encounter in the bungalow and I wasn’t overly impressed with the bathrooms or the run down state of the decking area. Definitely was not living up to its internet image or reviews!
We asked the owner if we could take a look at the rooms at Bokor Mountain Lodge and were pretty impressed even though they were $35 a night. Between Danni and I we were paying $14 for two bungalows without breakfast plus having to pay for tuktuks so we decided if we moved in, we probably wouldn’t be that much out of pocket. Danni suggested we do the one night at Olly’s and see how I felt the next morning…
Seriously ?!
After finishing dinner, we decided to visit Seeing Hands 5 a couple of doors down. Now I had already had a disaster in Phnom Penh but figured it
was a one off.... the lady at the door asked us what we would like.. I chose the Japanese massage and Danni the Thai massage. While I was laying down waiting, Danni's masseuse came out... and he looked good just looking at him... very professional looking... He started on Danni and I could see she was in for a treat.. About 5 minutes later, in walked Little Miss Mopey... Oh no... PLEASE don't let her be mine!
No such luck, she was ALL mine... and for the next hour I felt like I was going to commit suicide. I should have, in hindsight, just got up after the first 10 minutes and said I was finished... but no, me being the sucker for punishment that I am stuck the whole hour out and I knew exactly how long that hour was.. as in between her touching my body she hit her watch every couple of minutes to see how much time she had left!
I say touching, because she was literally with the least amount of passion or skill was just gently (very gently) squeezing my arms and legs like she was testing an Avocado for ripeness.. the
WHOLE hour! At one point she just said 'sorry' and walked off out the back for 5 minutes... perhaps a toilet break??
When she got back she started 'massaging' my forehead with her unwashed hands (you can tell when someone has just washed their hands) and in the process was poking me in the eyes and rubbing her hands all over my face.. I am sure she could tell I was VERY displeased by the wrinkled forehead and scowl on my face!
She then went back to one of my arms for 10 minutes before proceeding to the other arm for a couple of minutes before heading back to my legs... By this stage, I was seething inside and counting geckos on the roof! One was pregnant and chilling with its baby daddy right above me! Right around the Gecko counting time this is what happens :
Talking Watch "It is 7.53pm"
30 seconds later Talking Watch "It is 7.53pm"
30 seconds later Talking Watch "It is 7.54pm"
This went on for the next 8 minutes in between checking out the avocados for ripeness on my legs... I wanted to scream out "Yes it is STILL
the same time as you checked 30 seconds ago!" and bang, right on 8pm she stopped.. while Danni's guy kept going finishing off his massage... I got up fuming, changed clothes, threw $4 at the lady out the front and walked off...
By the time Danni walked out 10 minutes later, I was like "I need a massage to destress!!".. We didnt however, instead opting to go back for a quiet night at the guesthouse!
Sleepless buggy Nights
Back to Olly’s, we sat out on the decking for awhile before calling it an early night. I was hot and sweaty but after seeing the amount of bugs in the bathroom (and hearing rumours of spiders in there too) I decided to skip the shower and had a baby wipe wash in my room…. I jumped in under my mosquito net but by that stage a stack of insects were in under the net and more were being attracted by the light.. giving up on reading and having a light on, I went to sleep.. It was a long night full of freaking out over bugs! LOL
Overnight we had a storm and Danni woke up in
the middle of the night to a wet bed.. After realising she hadn’t in fact wet herself she felt a tap tap tap on her foot… It was then she realised that her roof was leaking. She ended up with a bin in the bed with a towel in the bin to stop the tap tap tap noise! By morning light her bed and the towel were soaked! Not a great start.
I was up at 5am…and decided I was more bug free in the open so got up and watched the sunrise up over the river. Quite peaceful and beautiful. When Danni got up, we ordered some breakfast but were unable to have juice due to the juicer being broken and no coffee due to the coffee machine being broken too! Hmmmmm…. Decision made… Bokor Mountain Lodge here we come…
I had to work myself up to tell Donna we were leaving… She was so lovely and I didn’t want to insult her at all, but the decision had been made. She was more than cool with our decision and we left with promises to try catch up while still in town!
Upon getting into our
tuktuk, another couple staying at Olly’s were walking up the driveway.. We decided to share the tuktuk into town. Once at Bokor Mountain Lodge the couple, Lois and Neil had breakfast with us and we did the traveller chat for awhile. While chatting I was looking through a book on the region and found a sunset cruise that looked pretty good. I asked our waiter about it and about 10 minutes later, the owner of the tour was seated in front of us!
Sunset on the South China Sea
Another Aussie, Darren, the owner of Dreamtime Tours, explained the ins and outs of his cruise and we were sold. Lois and Neil decided to join us. The Sunset cruise cost $19 per person and included a 2.5 hour tour, Australian wines (red and white), cheese/crackers and BBQ prawns (all you can eat). Lois is allergic to seafood so she was served some beautiful marinated pork ribs.
We headed down the river and when we got to the mouth of the river where it joins the South China Sea, the captain banked the boat on the sandbank and we watched the sunset! Absolutely gorgeous.. and great company.
While watching the sunset, all the local fisherman were leaving the river and heading out to sea for the night… very cool sight. I highly recommend the tour if you are heading to Kampot. There is a $5 tour going, but it consists of one beer and a bunch of backpackers so if you are looking for something different give this tour a try. Darren is in the early stages of finetuning the tour and open to suggestions on how to improve… It would also be the perfect cruise to do a couple (very romantic…) His website is here:
Kampot Dreamtime Tours After getting back to the guesthouse, we ran into Donna from Olly’s who was there having a drink. We mentioned that we would be heading down to Kep in a couple of days for a look around, so arranged that we would meet up for lunch/dinner while there. Lois and Neil were also heading to Kep (the next day) so they were keen to join in too. A couple of drinks with Darren, Lois and Neil and we were ready for bed… Weird but this whole holiday I have been up at the crack of dawn and in bed
by about 9pm every night.. Old age perhaps??
Safe travels
Reet
PS Love and Miss you Benny xxx
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Lynn Tate
non-member comment
Gorgeous
What's wrong Reety...ur blogs are getting tame...lol Do u miss him that much?? Normally we would be reading about drunken mishaps. It still sounds like ur having a wonderful time & as always, ur pics are beautiful. Lynn xox Stay safe