Sof, the tuk-tuk driver who had picked us up at the bus drop off point, asked if we wanted to go on a tour of the area and we arranged for him to pick us up at 10:00 am. Last night we had discussed things to do with the owner of Blissful, and he had even given us a map. Phyl ate a banana pancake and drank hot tea while I shared her tea and ate dry, knock-off, Frosted Flakes. We were a little wary of spending the day exploring the area in a tuk-tuk, so I swallowed 2 Immodiums and Phyl swallowed 1.
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| Kampot is durian capital of Cambodia |
Sof's English was good and we showed him the map, confirmed the places we would visit, confirmed a price of $18.00 for the whole day, and off we went. He first drove us around the town a Kampot, once a French Colonial town, to see the remnants of French architecture. This didn't take long. We then headed east to salt flats. This is a large area, resembling rice fields, but instead filled with salt water from the Gulf of Thailand. The ponds are about 50' x 75' and shallow. The water evaporates in about 3 days time and the salt is then collected and stored in a large, wooden, salt barn. The pools were quite pretty and colorful shimmering in the sunlight.
En route to our next stop, a cave, we passed Sof's fishing village where her grew up. He now lives in Kampot with his wife and 2 year old son, but his family still lives in this village. When it's not tourist season, he still fishes with his family members. We stopped briefly at what he called a fishing village, but it consisted of 2 canals and approximately 8 houses. We turned off the main road and began the long, arduous journey down the severely rutted, very dusty, red dirt road leading to the cave.
G- Hey, I hope you've got that tuk-tuk-titty thing working.
P- I got it going on, Agnes.
G- Good, on this road you could give me black eyes if we're not careful. Did you see that “barber
P- No, was it in one of those shacks?
G- Yeah. Typical one with a dirt floor and a barber chair. You've been saying that you're hot and you don't want to wait until Tibet to shave your head, so get your head shaved by that guy. It'll be more fun if he shaves it and not me.
P- Oh, you want me to shave my head now? Are you going to shave yours too?
G- Yes, I will too. You know it's something I've always wanted to do, but I am chicken, so you go first.
P- I see how you are. Ok, let's check it out when we leave the cave.
The road to the cave cut through a pretty little valley surrounded by low mountains. Some houses lined the road, but many others were placed randomly in the rice fields, surrounded by palm trees. Cows, chickens, and pigs lay in the shade under the houses. A school's morning session must have let out because the road was lined with grade school children walking and riding bikes. As we passed most of them called out, “hello
madam” and waved at us with huge smiles. This is something we have come to love about Cambodia, and we thoroughly enjoyed returning greetings, smiling, and waving back to the children. At one point 2 boys, around 10 or 11 years old, peddled as fast as they could to keep up with our tuk-tuk and have a conversation.
G & P – Hello! How are you today?
Boys – Good.
P- Are you going home from school?
Boys – Yes. Where are you from?
G- We are from America.
Boys – New York? Washington D.C.?
P- No, we're from New Orleans, but we are living in California. Have you heard of California?
Boys – Yes. California.
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| a short rest |
Boys – (smiling even bigger with pride) Thank you madam. Where do you go?
P- Now we are going to the cave.
Boys – And tomorrow?
P- Tomorrow we go to Vietnam. We have to leave Cambodia and we are very sad.
Boys- You are sad?
G- Yes. We love Cambodia very much and especially the Cambodian people. Everyone is very friendly, just like you. Can I take your picture?
P- It was nice to meet you.
Boys – Good-bye.
G- (to Phyl) I love these kids! It makes me so happy to smile and wave to them and tell them hello. They seem to get the biggest kick out of it too.
P- I love it too.
Girl – This is mint, and that is basil.
P- What's that?
Girl – How you say in English..............small salad?
P- Oh, lettuce?
Girl – Yes, lettuce! (she was also making a joke because the lettuce was still new and small.)
We were shocked to learn that she was 10 years, she looked 7, and she lived in the village we passed through to reach the cave. She goes to school in the morning, then in the afternoons, to earn some money, guides tourists up to the cave. She even knew what stalactites and stalagmites were and could explain how they were formed by water. She was quite impressive.
It was extremely hot and the walk to, and the climb up the 200 stairs to the cave took quite a toll on us because of our dehydration from the night before. We tried to drink a lot of water, but Phyl was starting to feel nauseous again. Fortunately, we recovered in the tuk-tuk as we made our way back through the village, waving at the adorable and exceptionally friendly children.
We told Sof that we wanted to find a barber, and he stopped at the one we had seen on the way in, but that barber was closed for lunch. We returned to the main road and headed toward the pepper plantation. Along the way, Sof turned down a road leading to a village and stopped in front of a 'beauty parlor'. Of course we didn't want a beauty parlor, but were lucky to find a barber directly across the street. It took quite a while to explain to Sof, and for him to translate to the barber, exactly what we wanted done. Part of the problem was that even though the barber used a shaver, he had never put the guard on the shaver and actually shaved someone's head in a buzz cut.
Sof – He does not know what you want.
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| outside barber shop |
Sof- Like he cuts this man's hair?
P- No, with the guard on the shaver. This thing is a guard.
Sof- We do not understand how you mean.
G- I will show him, then he can do it. Does he agree?
Sof – He says ok.
G- How much will he charge us?
Sof- He says $1.00 for you and $1.00 for you.
G- I believe so.
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| sugar cane juice |
Several men sat in the 'barber shop', a tin structure protruding from the front of the man's home. His wife watched as she held their baby, joined by an older lady, presumably her mother. Once Phyl sat in the chair, people were coming out of the shops on either side and from across the street. We had become quite the spectacle. I clipped the guard to the shaver and began shaving Phyl's head. It did not take long for the barber to see what I was doing and figure out what we wanted. After her head was shaved, he made the motions for shaving her neck and we nodded in agreement. He made a big deal of showing us that he was putting a new blade into a straight edge razor, and cleaned up the hair on her neck. The crowd continued to grow as my head was shaved and neck cleaned. We posed for a few photos and off we went.
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| jackfruit |
On the way to the pepper plantation we stopped at a road side stand where sugar cane was pressed into juice and poured over ice. It was a very tasty, and not too sweet, drink. While the husband pressed the cane, the wife was kind enough to give me a piece of it to chew. It reminded me of childhood field trips to the French Market where I would purchase sugar cane and chew it, on the bus, on the way home.
Good times! Good times!
P- I had no idea that pepper grew like a vine or in little bunches.
Sof- You taste.
G- Wow! It definitely tastes like black pepper.
P- Good thing, 'cause that's what it is.
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| pepper vines |
G- I know, but it's still young and green and hasn't been dried yet, so I didn't expect it to taste exactly like the pepper corns I know.
Sof- Take photo with me.
G- Ok. Phyl, stand next to Sof. (After taking it, I showed him.)
Sof – Good.
G- Look at the women sitting at the tables of that restaurant shack with all the pigs laying around their feet.
P- Big pink pigs!
G- That cracks me up! “Yen, would you get me some more rice? Be careful not to trip over my pig.”
P- Hahaha. I guess it's no big deal to them.
G- The next time we go up the road to eat dinner, we'll have to take our pig. She doesn't get out enough.
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| Kep means crab |
G- You stupid!
It took another 30 minutes to reach Kep, but the beach road was closed. Not a problem! Sof yelled to a guy on a motorcycle who lifted the rope over our tuk-tuk as Sof drove under.
P- I hate those pesky road closed signs.
G- They're not intended for us. We'll just go around.
The road and seawall were under major construction as the whole area was being rebuilt. Kep had once been a hopping beach town during the French occupation, but had been destroyed in the war. Many shells of once beautiful homes still lined the road on the opposite side of the beach. In another decade, the area will likely be rebuilt and thriving with tourists and Phnom Penhers on holiday. For now, we were very happy that we did not save our beach time for Kep, as we had once considered, because the beach itself is very small, not very inviting, and doesn't hold a candle to Otres Beach.
We stopped at a restaurant, built out over the Gulf of Thailand, and enjoyed the regional specialty, crabs & Kampot pepper. We invited Sof to join us and we're thrilled to watch him enjoy a lunch he probably could not afford. Just outside the restaurant's window we could see crab traps holding our lunch, and a man in the process of pulling them further into the Gulf because the tide had gone out. That's what we call fresh crabs!!
Sof dropped us at our guesthouse by 5:00 pm and we got his address so that we could send him copies of the photos we had taken. His address was unusual in that we were to put his name, the name of his village, Kampot, Cambodia. He was very excited that we would write to him and insistent that he will get our letter addressed as indicated.
G- I guess. I assume that it would be big news if Sof got a letter from America. The whole village would know it.
P- We did see the village and it's not very big.
G- It's just hard to wrap our brains around, but I have no doubt that it was like this in “the olden days” in America too. Back before communities were so large and people didn't even know their next door neighbors.
P- I guess so. Come to think of it, I have never seen anything that looks like a mail truck or anyone who looks like a mailman.
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| gas stop from Pepsi bottle |
G- The whole town of Siem Reap only had one post office, so I don't imagine that Kampot has more than one. Maybe there is no mailman. Maybe word is sent to Sof's village and he has to go pick up the letter.
Our stomachs were still ok after eating that risky lunch and we were not going to risk eating dinner, so we spent the evening watching TV in our clean, air conditioned room and tried to prepare ourselves for Vietnam.
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| disco cigarettes! |
