Tag Archives: Kampot

Day 193 – Kampong Cham

Crossing the first of the two great rivers in Phnom Penh

Crossing the first of the two great rivers in Phnom Penh

Time to get moving again. After two days in Kampot, we now looked northwards…and to the East. Distances are not too great but since 80 kmh is the fastest we usually can go, it still takes time. For now, we ended our stint to the South and went back up again. Not wanting to end up in Phnom Penh for the night, we had set our eyes to Kampong Cham instead.

It was a good day for riding even if the weather is back up to over 30 degrees. Most days are okay as long as you are in the shade but riding on the roads, perpetually having the sun shine on your helmet makes you heat exhausted and drowsy quite quickly. So we stop for water breaks every now and then. Though Cambodia doesn’t have the always convenient warungs of Indonesia, it has small, garage-sized shops everywhere along the roads. These shops sell everything you might lack: From cold drinks to soaps and shampoo, a pen, some cookies, you get the jest. They all have an ice box (often literally) outside; the fancier ones sell ice cream, the more regular ones just cooled drinks.

Almost there, but the fatigue has hit pretty hard.

Almost there, but the fatigue has hit pretty hard.

So after an hour, we stopped at one of these and bought two bottles of cool water. The owner made some chair appear for us in the shade, so we plopped down and downed our water. Since this is also the “break from the bike” time, we hung around. So the owner came to talk to us. His English was really good and he was very interested in what we had seen so far in Cambodia and where we still planned to go. It always makes people happy when they realize you are actually interested in seeing their country and are not just stopping at Angkor Wat before being lorried out to Laos. He recommended the East to us again and said people are even more friendly there. When we asked him about his English, it turned out that he had worked with an NGO, had to speak English all day while helping former drug addicts. But now he’s more of a businessman and advocate for Cambodia.

We left him to continue our journey but stopped in Phnom Penh for lunch, then continued. It took us until 4.30pm to arrive at the Mekong Hotel. There, the most amusing thing was the security guard, trying to help us carry in our luggage. The panniers are too heavy for most but he still tried without complaint, although the 40 kg obviously nearly broke him. Dinner was had in another training restaurant with lovely staff. It was yummy, even though it was out of its signature black pepper squid dish, to Flo’s dismay.

Day 191 – Kampot Pepper

Someone is happy about breakfast

Someone is happy about breakfast

For breakfast, we went out to the Epic Arts cafe. This cafe is staffed by disabled people, mainly deafmutes, and is collecting money so that disable artists can teach art. Apart from this, it is just an awesome place where “every person counts”. Full of hippies, tourists (it is in the Lonely Planet after all) and stuff that you can buy to support the cause.

To order our breakfast, we got a form with pictures and descriptions of the dish. As always, I went for the continental option while Flo picked the granola-yogurt-fruit option. Also as always, we ended up sharing. My tea came in a pot this time and I’ve had about four cups before we started our tiny sight-seeing tour.

We had seen the durian roundabout yesterday afternoon but we wanted yo take a picture of it so we walked there. Another alley brought us to the Old French bridge which has been repaired in a mix of styles. Walking back to our hostel along the riverfront and through the small alleys, we decided to have a bit of a rest day and relax in our cool (temperature-wise) room over noon.

Each lady can process up to 3 kg of black pepper a day.

Each lady can process up to 3 kg of black pepper a day.

A short hop out of it at 1pm for lunch told us how right we had been as it was really quite hot. So we waited until about 4pm before taking the bike to FarmLink, a pepper plantation. Kampot pepper is special in its taste. In 2010, it received a “geographical indication” which is something you might be familiar with for French cheeses. It’s only the real thing if it is from the right region.

Growing and especially sorting pepper is s.o. m.u.c.h. work and it is done by hand here. All three sorts of pepper (black, red and white) come from the same plant. It depends on the time of harvest and the further processing involved. So we tasted our way through the peppers which was amazing but also kind of weird. Definitely a first for me.

80% of FarmLink’s pepper is exported to Europe, especially to France. However, the finer local restaurants are using it, too. I like it if a local product also gets some local use, like Flores coffee for example.

Afterwards, we sat at the riverfront again, watching yet another sun go down before trying a “Jamacain 10-speed” in Rikitikitavi.

Day 190 – Riverside retreat

Leaving Phnom Penh in the morning, we planned to ride to Kampot, the long way around. Kampot is a small river town which had been used as a “seaside retreat” before the civil war. It is still small and charming but on the rise and we decided to check it out rather than the beach town of Sihanoukville.

5m wide, 27m long ... this strange pattern is found all over south-east Asia.

5m wide, 27m long … this strange pattern is found all over south-east Asia.

There is a pretty direct road to Kampot from Phnom Penh, however, in order to see at least a bit of Cambodia’s mountains, we used the “scenic route” which led past the Elephant mountains. The Cardamom mountains still elude us. Lots of eco-tourism opportunities are available for trekking in the National Park of these mountains but they are all not accessible with a motorbike. Most of them actually start in tiny village that you reach via a boat cruise up the river. Leaving the bike behind feels wrong so I guess, we will have to come back to Cambodia at some time.

The route was nice and it was a great change to see some mountains again in this flat country but we completely forgot to take any pictures. Through the detour, the day’s ride was quite long again with 240km; and we drove it almost in one go.

Would fit into an Alsacian town juts as well

Would fit into an Alsacian town juts as well

Entering Kampot via a bridge over the river, we liked it immediately. A sleepy little town with roundabouts as their sightseeing attraction and a great riverside promenade with restaurants and cafes. Our little Pepper guest house, carefully checked out via the internet in advance, also was lovely and the rooms with fan only cost US$7 per night. Glad that we had booked two nights already, we went into town after a shower.

There are many colonial buildings still standing here and it gives Kampot quite the French atmosphere. When we reached the river (not far from Pepper guest house at all), the sun was just starting to set, tinging everything in a warm yellow. Sitting down and watching it for a bit, we then decided to go to a Lonely Planet recommendation for dinner, even if it was a little more expensive than the other options around.

The local fishermen leaving for another nights catch

The local fishermen leaving for another nights catch

Rikitikitavi is across the road from the river so that the terrace looks out over it. While entering, we noticed the big sign of “2 for 1 cocktails from 5-7pm” which was now. So we ended up ordering a mojito, a home-made lemonade and Khmer dinner. The staff was so friendly and while nibbling on the salted peanuts that we received, the cocktails arrived. Just…they weren’t mojitos but we totally forgot to connect this fact with our order and started sipping them away. They were good. Made with fresh pineapple juice. Wait…pineapple juice in a mojito? It was right then that our mojitos arrived as well…and we were really embarrassed that we’d forgotten what we ordered. The waitress said it was her mistake and she gave us the first round of cocktails for free. So in the end, we both ended up with four cocktails at the price of one. 🙂