Kampot was the surprise hit of my 3.5 months of
travel. My guidebook had a relatively
short entry for the town, but with a phrase that particularly stood out:
“Kampot is a place you ‘feel’ rather than ‘experience’. After my experience in Battambang, I knew
that I was taking another chance on Kampot, but it was either Kampot or Ket,
and Ket seemed to be even less special and exciting than Kampot.
My hostel was just outside of the
main part of town. This combined with
the fact that it was a brand new building with a swimming pool to boot made it
seem slightly resort-ish, which I certainly wasn’t complaining about.
My first half day in Kampot, I
just wondered around town. Really, there
wasn’t TOO much to this place, but the downtown area reminded me of a liberal
and quirky small American Mid-Western town – not unlike my own hometown. A mix of Cambodians and foreigners ran the
shops and restaurants.
Beyond the downtown area, many of
the buildings (which had actually been turned into guesthouses) had retained
the color and architecture of their former occupants: French colonialists.
Kampot also had an absolutely
lovely walkway next to the river that looks like it had just been developed in
the last couple of years. The walkway
afforded amazing views of the river and the mountains decorating the horizon on
the other side of the river.
On my second day in Kampot, I took
a tour to Bokor Mountain, which sounded too much like Bokononism, the hilarious
Dada-inspired religion made up by author Kurt Vonnegut, to let me think about
anything else. I was on the tour with a British couple, a couple of British
girls, a surly old American man, and one American girl. As we ascended the
mountain in our small van, it became increasingly foggy and eerie.
For a little background
information, Bokor Mountain was used as a retreat for the occupying French
soldiers trying to escape the heat and humidity of the plains below. As such,
there were various buildings built on top of the mountain, including Bokor Hill
Station and Bokor Palace Hotel and Casino. These buildings, while long
abandoned, are still standing mostly for tourism (as far as I could ascertain).
As we reached the zenith of the
mountain, the fog was close to all-encompassing. So, while on one hand we were
missing out on some (supposedly) amazing views from the mountaintop, we were
treated to a somewhat unsettling and creepy atmosphere. Exploring the Bokor
Hill Station and Bokor Palace Hotel and Casino in this foggy silence was like
being in a real-life horror movie. The gutted greyness and lifelessness of
these buildings betrayed the privileged colonial lives that they once
entertained and maintained. We kept half-suspecting that some ghost or undead
creature would be around the next corner to kills us, but thankfully we were
spared such a supernatural demise.
At lunch, I talked to the British
couple for a while. They had been living and teaching abroad for years. They
had started their careers in Botswana, and then moved to New Zealand, and then
to Switzerland, where they had remained for the last six years. I picked their
brains for a while about their experiences working at international schools and
how one gets “into” working at those schools, since I’m considering the
possibility in the future.
I can’t remember exactly, but I
think that included in our Bokor Mountain tour was a boat ride along the river.
It started raining just as soon as we entered the boat, but we made our way
down the river anyhow. We spotted children playing along the riverbed, as well
as probably at least 30 fishing boats all coming down the opposite way, and
behind them, the mountains and sunset. A wonderful way to end the day.
One of my favorite days of my 3.5
months of travel was my final day in Kampot. The American girl (let’s call her
Lauren) I befriended on the tour the day before and I decided to rent bikes and
ride around. We started off rough when Lauren’s bike chain fell off and it was
impossible (without tools) to fix it. After going back and getting another
bike, we stopped at a little café known for its pie (how long had it been since
I had good pie?! I have no idea), and it
was indeed scrumptious. Then we went
across the river to another hostel called Bodhi Villa. Lauren wanted to go here
because she wanted to switch to this hostel. I had completely forgotten about
it, but someone, either earlier in my travels (or my friend from Daejeon, Kim)
had told me about this hostel. As we
made our way towards the hostel, it started pouring down rain. We stopped under
a roadside store’s small awning, much to the chagrin of some small children who
had the same idea. Lauren had put her backpack underneath her rain poncho and
on her front side, so it looked like she was pregnant. I vaguely remember her
making exaggerated poses in front of the children to accentuate her
“pregnancy”, much to their chagrin. The rain let up momentarily, so we went on
our merry way.
The hostel had an opening towards the river,
with chairs and tables. We sat down to wait out the rain, which had become
torrential. In our presence were a
scruffy looking American man and two Israeli sisters. The five of us chatted
and hung out for probably 30 or 45 minutes. A lot of the conversation focused
on life in Israel. I’m not sure what made this one of my favorite experiences
of my travels, but I do remember the conversation having long pauses, but the
pauses were not awkward. We didn’t feel the need to fill up the space with
pointless prattle. Perhaps it was because the empty spaces of our conversation
were filled with the rain pounding on the river. The river lazily building up
its mass.
And to briefly address a theme of
this blog, I think this was also one of the only times in my 3.5 months of
traveling that I felt 100% wholly in the present.
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