Cambodia: Kampot & Phnom Penh

The river and it's curious decorations

Krong Kampot is a little town at the south western part of the country, it doesn't really offer that much to see other than a few viewing points and the Praek Tuek Chhu river, but it often serves as a base city to explore the vast surroundings.

But the reason of my visit is a different one. Due to the lack of time that I have left in Cambodia (2 days) I can’t really visit one of the islands or even Sihanoukville for that matter. On the other hand, I do know that Paul is in Kampot and that he is heading towards the capital the next day. Something that fits perfectly into my plans. So I decided to meet Paul in Kampot, explore the little town and proceed to Phnom Penh on the next morning.

As I arrive I end up in a little café that works with deaf people, this made me think about the concept and how the fact the there's more places like this in Cambodia than in Spain.

The Durian Roundabout

I meet Paul and we go for a little walk around the town. The viewing points are just a few, one of those being a roundabout with a massive Durian fruit in the middle. 

We also find the remaining of an old cinema theatre, which is quite famous in the area. But the front place of the cinema seems to be ideal for parking, because every single time that we walked by it we found a bunch of cars parked in front. Not really great for pictures.

It's also remarkable that all the building in this area look like they have a southern European style, and as I read into some  information about the town I see that it's because of the Portuguese and French influence from back in the days. Does this French influence mean that I'm finally getting some decent bread in South East Asia!? 

We decided to go for a few drinks, and the prices are so low that you can't really drink water here. So we snack a bit and have a few drinks, preparing ourselves for the exhausting sunset and firefly cruise that we booked for this afternoon. 

The cruise would have been enjoyable, I'm sure about that, if it wasn't for the people that joined us. A group of old Australians, and not that I have anything against elders or Australians, no, the problem was their mentality. One of them hated everyone that wasn't Australian, but then again his girlfriend was a 20 year younger Cambodian woman. And even worse, this woman's kid was a little spoiled brat and made the trip worse by telling the captain "I'm bored, can we please turn back" and ruining our chances to see the fireflies. 

Anyway, in search of a place for dinner we find a locally famous pizza place, run by an an Italian who got tired of Europe and decided that he wanted a relaxing South East Asian life, he runs the place with his Mom and a very limited amount of stock, no pressure, no haste, just his passion for his food and good company. We had to wait for quite a long while before getting our order, but it was soo worth it (by the time we got the order he had sold out all his stock) We had excellent Italian food for a very decent price. 

The next morning we have a bus awaiting us at 7 a.m. with our final Cambodian destination: Phnom Penh. The capital of the country. 

A Stupa in honor of the victims

As we arrive we drop everything off, and on my way to the bank I find a Tuk tuk driver that is willing to do the tour of the S-21 prison and the Killing Fields for 15$ (I had red that the average price is around 20$ or more) great! This means that we have the whole day to visit the two must see places of the city.

The killing fields are truly as impressive as they say. Especially with the audio tour, you get an image of how terrible the events where during the Kampuchea Communism era. The guide explains what used to be done and even shows a few places that are very capable of shocking you so much that you drop a tear.

I would love to say that the next stop was less impacting but I’m afraid that it's not the case. The S-21 Prison is just as shocking as the fields, and maybe even more, because everything is still standing just as it was the day that they found it. Here you hear about how the rest of the world lived without even knowing what was going on in Cambodia. How even after the fall of his communistic regime, Poll Pot (the dictator) still got a place at the UN world conference, instead of the actual regime.

Lots of shocking things and unbelievable information, but I don’t want to expand to much on what happend in the country during these dark communistic years, as you have plenty of tools to find information about it yourself if you really want to know more about it.

After few minutes of silence on the way back to the hostel we start planning the night. The Russian market seems to be a great thing to visit if you are in town. It's a 40 minutes walk away from the hostel, but being young and fit we decide to walk there. It wasn't that bad and we got there fairly quick. But the market closes at around 6-7. And by the time we get there (something like half past 7) everything is closed. Yay…

Luckily for us, there is a little night market in the same area, nothing that you can compare to the Thai night markets, but with enough food stands to chose from. 

Which was actually, all what we were looking for.

Back in the hostel we notice how the staff is in a party mood as they are is getting everyone shots and drinks on the house, Paul and I join in for a short while before eventually saying good bye to each other.

It was a pleasure travelling with you Paul and I hope that you enjoy Nepal and the tiny mountain it has.

Cambodia: Siem Reap

After the eventually 30 hours of travel I arrive at Siem Reap in Cambodia, it's around 6 in the afternoon and because of the long trip I decide that I will make it an early night.
But of course, not too early.
So after checking in and dropping off the bags I head into town with Bob, a Dutch guy I met at the Cambodian border that's on a very nice trip passing through a lot of countries.

We take a few nice pictures of the pub street and the little pop up bars together and have dinner in a local place before heading back to the hostel.

The following morning while having breakfast I meet this girl called Alva, who is looking for someone to go with to visit the temples, and while my original plan was to go and visit them by bike, Alva got a tuk tuk that did the tour for just 10$ instead of the regular 18, so I join her for the tuk tuk around the temples. The original plan was to visit Ankor Wat, Ankor Thom (specifically Bayon) and Tha Prom, which is the Tomb Raider temple. Then finish the journey with a sunset at one of the temples.

Ankor Wat 

The temples offer an incredible visit, and even though there are loads of tourists, there are still some great spots where you can take pictures without any tourists running in front of your camera.

In my opinion the nicest temples are the least famous ones though, Ankor wat was impressive but I liked Bayon more, and Tha Prom was amazing to see with all the trees

After the three big temples we head back to the hostel before sunset (The day had been long and after hearing many disappointing stories about the sunset we tought that we could just skip this part)  Where I meet Christopher, another room mate which seemed very nice, we all went for dinner and afterwards to the pub street, which was awesome! There are a few very cool bars and soo many people that end up dancing in the street. I even saw a girl that I had met in Bangkok on my second night of the trip!! (as they say: It is a small world)

The next day I don't have any plans so I get to sleep out. Once up I have a look in the little part of the towns centre. And remarkably enough as you walk through the tiny streets, more or less 7 out of 10 food place serve "Happy Pizza's" at first I didn't think about it too much, but after seeing the signs again and again I stared wondering what made those pizzas "happy pizzas" so I asked someone what it ment, Apparently the pizzas are made "happy" with a little bit of weed or sometimes even mushrooms.
Honestly, how do people come up with these things ??

By night time we are struggling to think about where to go for dinner. Scarlett, a 19 year old girl that has done a trip that seriously made me jealous, and made me applaud her, is joining us this time. Christopher has a look on TripAdvisor and finds a very famous burger place nearby, but on the way there we find a place called the "Bug Cafe" where they serve dishes combined with bugs, curiosity struck us and we went in to try a little dish before continuing.
We order "Mediterranean Feuilletés with ants", but after half an hour of waiting they tell us that they had run out of their stock. So completely disappointed we continue to the burger place, I know, it's not the most local thing, but it was soo worth it. By the time we got there we where all starving, and the burgers tasted sooo good, everyone went quiet for a little while.

We head to play a few games of pool and continue to the pub street, where yet again there is a great atmosphere. We spend the rest of the night at one of the roof bars in the centre of the pub street. The cool thing about the roof top is that the chairs are colourful puffs and they all surround a little table.

The last day we spend together we spent it sharing pictures that we had and just chatting a bit. I'm taking the night bus at around 6 towards Kampot so before leaving we head for dinner a last time. The place where we head towards has lots of local dishes, but they also serve, Belgian beers! Even in Cambodia you can find a good old Duvel :D

I honestly say that I like Siem Reap a lot, one of the nicest cities that I've been up to now, may be it because of the people or because of how the city is. But it was nice, I hope to see you guys again somewhere!