Look Ma, No Hair!

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.




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

shop” we just passed?

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.

Boys – Hello Madam.

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.



a short rest

 G- Your English is very good.

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?

Boys- (about to burst with pride) Yes! (They rode faster and smiled for the camera.)

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.

We arrived at the starting point for the hike to the cave and were swarmed with preteens offering to be our tour guides. Sof walked with us and we declined all offers, but ended up with 3 kids anyway. The 2 boys were typical boys and cut up with each other more than they guided us, but the girl was a very intelligent, petite thing who could even tell us the things growing in the gardens we passed.

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.



outside barber shop

 P- We want him to shave our heads.

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.

P- I don't know Gi, think we can afford that?

G- I believe so.






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.



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.



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.

Many things were grown on this plantation besides pepper. Sof showed us jack fruit trees, papayas, mangos, durian and cashew nut trees. We purchased a bag of pepper corn, for which Kampot is famous, and we headed back down the dusty road.

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.



Kep means crab

 P- I was noticing she's getting fat. I think she needs some exercise.


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.

P- What do you think happens............ the letter is sent to Kampot, then the mailman just brings it to someone in the village who sends word to Sof that he has a letter?

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.



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.

disco cigarettes!

Happy Valentine's Day

Jou

We still had the virus when we left Mien Mien on Valentine's Day. It was a very sad day and we hated to leave paradise, but all of our friends had already gone.  We were ready to get out of the dirty beach shack, and we had had enough of Mien Mien's horrible service and bad attitudes.  However, we were going to miss the sweet Cambodian beach workers.  We had arranged transport, through Jou, who assured us that we would be picked up from Mien Mien, at 12:30, by a van.  We wanted to avoid the rock road in a tuk-tuk, and going over the hill, with all of our stuff, even on 2 motorcycles, was out of the question.
At 10:00 Molly had her cleaning bucket on our porch and was pacing.

P- That girl had better not step one foot in this room before our 12:00 check out time! She has not cleaned our room 1 time in 2 weeks, even though we asked her to several times, and now she's going to pace around like she can't wait to get in here and clean.

G- It's just par for the course at this place.

P- I'm glad we're leaving here today.

G- Me too. I'm ready to go and sleep in a clean room, with clean sheets, air con and to not have to sleep in the mosquito net cage.

We went next door to Ritchie's and got egg salad sandwiches and cokes.  At exactly 12:00 we removed our belongings from the hut and waited under one of the 'cabanas'. A tuk-tuk showed up at 12:10 to pick us up. Gladys, always worked up on travel days, especially those involving a bus ride, and already not feeling well, had her anxiety dial turned up to 20!

P- Where the hell is Jou? She assured us that a van would pick us up. I'm not paying extra for that tuk-tuk!!

G- Here she comes now.

P- Jou, what's up with the tuk-tuk?

Jou – I don't know. Wait.  It's ok. It's ok. (she spoke to the tuk-tuk driver).  He say van driver ask him to pick you up and take you to town and he will pick you up there. He is late.

P- And we're not paying for this tuk-tuk. It's included in the price of the ticket right?

Jou- Yes, no pay more, no pay more. It ok.

P- Alright. Thank you, Jou.

Jou- Ok. Bye. 

Even though we had stayed at Mien Mien, we had bonded more with the beach hawkers.  The Mien Mien crew was quite an odd, unfriendly bunch.

G- Hold your titties, Gladys. We must be running late because this mofo is going fast over these rocks.

P- I'm ok. You know how you develop sea legs when you've been on a boat for a while? Well I think I've developed tuk-tuk-titty. I've found a way to sway with the bouncing that keeps them from knocking my teeth out.

G- Well, isn't that nice?!

The tuk-tuk driver made a phone call, then dropped us off in front of a hotel.

Driver – You wait here. Van will pick you up in 15 minutes.

P- He knows where we are and he'll get us here?

Driver – Yes. You wait here. 15 minutes.

G- Ok. Thank you.

P- (to me) Great! We're just being dropped here and how do we even know if the van is going to come pick us up?

G- Gladys! Stop it with the crazy talk. The van is coming to get us. You know this is how things work here. Stop being paranoid.

P- I'm just saying, what would we do if he didn't come to get us?

G- Then we will have been screwed, but we would just get on a different bus. Calm down.

P- Ok. You know I hate riding on these buses.

G- You make it way worse in your head than it really is. Stop thinking! You're working yourself up.

P- No, I'm not making it worse than it really is!  They drive like maniacs!  Way too fast on these 1 and a 1/2 lane roads.

G- On the day that we're intended to die, we will die. Now let it go. There is nothing you can do about it.

Luckily we were approached by a comedic tuk-tuk driver who struck up a conversation with us about, of course, where are we from, where have we been, where are we going. What's even more bizarre than a total stranger asking us all of these questions, information which is none of his business, we always answer them. It's a strange Asian travel thing. This temporarily took Phyls mind off of the impending bus ride.

Sure enough, just as we were told, the van pulled up, albeit 15 minutes late. Already the back compartment was full of backpacks, so I sat in the first seat, next to 2 girls, and held mine between my legs with my day pack on my lap. Phyl got into the middle seat, next to a Frenchman, and stacked her backpack and our large black bag at her feet. (Because we have been unable to mail stuff home, we are carrying an extra bag of stuff, and it is very heavy. We have got to off load this bag because it is impeding our traveling.) The back seat held 3 Australian, college age, bafoons who talked, loudly, the whole trip of being drunk, trying to get laid, and taking drugs.

At our next stop we picked up a man who sat in the passenger seat and kept his backpack between his legs. All the seats were filled, but we made a final stop and took on another man, whose backpack was shoved in the rear compartment and his seat, a plastic blue chair, was placed in a space next to Phyl's bench seat. Thankfully, we did not pick up anyone else.

The drive to Kampot, east of Sihanoukville, was pretty smooth. We put our ipod on to block out the sound of the college age baffoons and watched the green countryside go by. I looked back frequently to make sure that Phyl was ok, and she seemed to have calmed down. The bus driver was not speeding too much and was keeping the honking down to a minimum. The poor bastard on the blue, plastic chair had it the worst because his seat would threaten to fall over with every turn we rounded, and he clung to my seatback to keep himself upright. Several times, to his chagrin, he fell into Phyllis.

After 2 hours we arrived in Kampot. As we had hoped, and expected, a tuk-tuk driver was waiting at the drop off point and agreed to take us to a guesthouse for $1.00. We stopped at 4 guesthouses and all were full. Finally, on a street lined with guesthouses we found a place with real walls, a large bed, no mosquito net, clean sheets, abundant toilet paper, and air con for $14.00. Happy Valentine's Day to us!!

We walked across the street to Blissful Guesthouse, which had been recommended by the comedic tuk-tuk driver in Sihanoukville, and had a few cold beers and dinner. It was only 5:00 pm when we ate dinner, but, excited by our western choices, we made the mistake of eating a mexican dish. It was so nice to lie in bed, sans mosquito net, and watch TV! We were enjoying it very much until the heartburn and mild nauseau started. Phyl didn't lose any of her groceries, but by 2:00 am I found myself sitting on the toilet, unable to get up, with only a plastic basket type garbage can as a barf recepticle. I had no choice but to puke on the floor, but I repurposed the nether region sprayer and washed everything down the drain! I made it through the remainder of the night, nauseous, but in bed and fitfully sleeping. Phyl was knocked out and never heard a thing except the pack of dogs barking at each other outside of our window. Oh well, it was still quieter than our nights on Otres Beach.