Thursday morning I woke up, ate some breakfast and paid my bill at the guest house I was staying at in Sihanoukville. The total for my room for 3 nights, 3 breakfasts, the moto rental and my bus ticket to Kampot came to $46.20. I spent more money than I expected in Sihanoukville, all those 50 cent Angkar drafts on the beach added up. I wanted to go on the internet to see if I some money I transferred over had cleared yet, so I could make a withdrawal from the ATM before I left Sihanouville. Checking out took longer than I had expected and as soon as I finished my minibus was at the hotel to pick me up. No worries, I would just get money from an ATM in Kampot. I looked in the free Kampot guide in the bus and it said there weren’t any ATMs in the city, not good. I counted my money and I had about $35 dollars. I had originally planned on spending a few nights in Kampot and checking out Kep (another close by town). I decided with $35 dollars the best thing to do would be to just stay one night in Kampot see what the town had to offer and then take a bus back to Phnom Penh the next day.
The bus ride was beautiful, the highway cut across one the wildest green sections of Cambodia I have seen. There were even a few small mountains covered with the lush jungle. I listened to my iPod the whole ride. Seems like the only time I really listen to music anymore is on bus rides.
When we got to Kampot the bus stopped at the Longvilla guest house. I checked out the room and it looked nice, and for $5 it was within my budget. I spent another $.40 checked my email and my banking the money had transferred, I could have gotten money in Sihanoukville, oh well. For lunch I had beef lok lak ($3.00) and a large bottle of water ($.50).
I walked around the town for a bit to check it out. Kampot is a cool town in lies in the Preak Kampong Bay River. The air in the town is really fresh, the whole town is surrounded by jungle and Mountains. There are a bunch of building the decrepit French Colonial buildings. I found one abandoned skeleton of a colonist building on the river that was covered in bullet pockmarks. The Khmer Rouge was in Kampot till the 90’s and there was a lot of violence in this area.
I walked around a little more and I found a book shop. It had better selection and prices than any of the book stores in Phnom Penh. I found about 10 bookleg book they had that I wanted to read all for $3.00 each. I settled on Mr. Nice which I have been wanting to read for a while. I got a few more things for some of my friends back at CWF, I ended spending $8.00 at the book store which I probably should have done.
Later when I was walking around I found an ATM in a Western Union. I decided to stick to my original plan and not take out any money since I had already booked my bus ticked back to Phnom Penh ($5.00). I heard there were some waterfalls 8km out of the city, and thought it would be nice to check them out and go for a swim. I talked to some moto drivers and I couldn’t get them to under $5.00. I decided to just rent a moto from my guest house for $6.00 of course I had to put petrol in it which was another $3.00.
I took a wrong turn when I was looking for the waterfall and rode deep into the countryside it was so beautiful that I didn’t mind. I turned around and found the “waterfall” (it cost me another $1.00 to get into the park area) it was more of a quick section of the river. There were a bunch of food stalls along the rivers and it seems like it is a popular place for Cambodians to picnic and relax. I went swimming for a bit, but the water was too powerful to really enjoy myself. You had to stay against rocks of the water would pull you down stream, a little further there were some pretty mean looking rapids.
I got back on my moto rode around a little and took some pictures. Went down by the riverside and found a really cool fishing village. I saw the biggest rainbow I have ever seem in my life. As I was making my way back to my guest house I found a place that was having a kicking boxing match later that night. Tickets were $2.00. I went back to my room, showered, had some overpriced mediocre noodles on the street ($2.00). Then went to the match. I got there early, my seat was actually the first one set up against the ring. I have never sat ringside before. Within 30 minutes the place was packed.
I found out they only do this about once a year, so it was a pretty big deal, it seemed like the whole town showed up for the event. There were five fights and each fight was better than the previous one. Out of the 5 fights there were 4 knockouts. The one fight that went the distance probably shouldn’t have. It was one of the most exciting fights of the night. It was 2 decent sized men, one from Kampot and one from Phnom Penh. The guy from Phnom Penh was tough. He would let his opponent punch him in the face and just laugh then launch a sting of damaging blows. This guy seemed sadistic. It looked like he was going to get a knockout midway through the second round, when all of a sudden the power went. It was close to a half hour before the lights turned back on and the momnetum had shifted. It was a good fight.
The last 2 fights featured fighters from Laos and Japan fighting Cambodians. It was kind of a big deal. The Laotian got knocked out but put up a good fight. The guy from Japan was a cocky bastard and I really wanted to see him get knocked out. He was pretty disrespectful in the pre fight dance. He kept up his attics a full 5 minutes after the Cambodian stopped his. He was also a dirty fighter, hitting before the they touched gloves and after the bell rang. Also hitting while the Khmer guy was restrained by the ref. It almost seemed staged, like wrestling. I know wrestling is huge here (WWE is way more popular here than it is in the States), but these guys were hitting each other hard and that much was obvious. At times they were leaning against the ropes in front of me pounding each other only inches from my face. Towards the end of the fight they stopped using their legs and it became a slug fest. I thought the Cambodian guy had him and then the Japanese guy connected with a haymaker and it was lights out for the Cambodian. It was the best fight of the night.
I went back to my guest house got some sleep. In the morning I had a street sandwich for breakfast($.75) and street noodles for lunch ($1.00) leaving me with one dollar in my pocket enough to catch a moto taxi back home from the bus station in PP.
The bus left at 12:30. It was supposed to be a 4 hour ride, it ended up being 7. The bus was constantly overheating. We had to stop about every 40 minutes so they could throw water on the engine. When we stopped at the mid way point to stretch out legs. The bus wouldn’t start, the co pilot of the bus told be that the engine didn’t work, and that the breaks didn’t work either. It took them about 20 minutes to get the engine started. We jumped in and continued on the road towards the capitol.
After about 45 minutes the bus started to overheat again, the driver got out to check it out and told everyone to get out of the bus. I got out and saw flames coming out from the rear wear well. The driver filled his bucket with water and extinguished the flames. The messed around with the bus for a while then the driver took off he was gone for a little over an hour and came back with a new smaller bus. We crowded in to and resumed our journey, just as the rain started.
The new bus had terrible suspension and this was one of the bumpiest rides in Cambodia.
I got back hungry and smelly. Took a shower, went to the ATM and walked to Coffee Korner. Sarah and Giada who had just got back from Siem Reap were there. So were Neal and Helena. I had a pizza and a few Angkar Drafts. It’s good to be back.
