From Phnom Penh, we took a karaoke bus down to southern Cambodia to the coastal town of Kampot. The karaoke was a screen at the front and a man swapping out discs of Cambodian pop songs with corny 70’s style music videos. It was humorous at first, but by the end of the ride, we were wishing we’d kept our ear plugs accessible! Once we got to town, we put on our packs and walked past the huge durian and other tropical fruits statue and over to our hotel.
Kampot is a relaxed town and we enjoyed a slightly cool breeze during dinner in the evening and got a couple of Khmer massages that first night. (The verdict is that Thai massage is better than Khmer massage.) The next morning, we got up early for a tour of the area. As we got out into the countryside, every house we passed had little kids running up to the road or waving from their porches hollering, “Hello! Hello!” with huge grins on the faces. We visited salt fields where they were harvesting basket after basket of large salt crystals from evaporated sea water pumped into the fields from 5km away, a small fishing village that also grew peanuts, a cave where some locals shared their green mango with us, and best of all, a pepper plantation. Yes, pepper as in peppercorn. Kampot recently gained GI status for their pepper and they’re very proud of it. At the plantation, we saw how all 4 kinds of pepper they produce – white, red, black and green – are from the same plant. They explained when each was picked and how it was processed and let us taste each one – even the fresh green pepper right off the vine! We also had a little pepper vodka – literally just vodka with a bunch of fresh peppercorn soaking at the bottom.
After a seafood lunch on the water, we were supposed to end the day with a visit to Rabbit Island, but as we approached, we were informed that the government had closed the island for the day. No one was quite sure why. Our guide felt so bad about us not getting out to the island, that he called back to the main office and they quickly agreed to give us a free sunset tour on the river to compensate us. We’re not sure what Rabbit Island had to offer, but we feel pretty confident that the sunset tour was better. We took a large boat upstream until we could see only trees and mountains all around. Then the ship dropped anchor and shut off the motor so we could enjoy peacefully watching the sun set into the mountains. The captain then took off his shirt, climbed to the upper deck and did an impressive back flip and twist into the water! Several passengers followed suit and soon there were about 10 of us swimming around or tubing out in the warm water.
Eventually we had to head back to town. We stopped for some ice cream from a man wheeling a cart through the city and ringing a bell before making our way back to the hotel. Before our afternoon bus back to Phnom Penh, we enjoyed a relaxing brunch at Epic Arts – a restaurant that employs some of Kampot’s Deaf population as well as some other folks with disabilities. They hosts weekly sign language classes for those wishing to pick up Cambodian Sign Language and also have several art and drama classes for youth.
Our flight out of the county wasn’t until the next day, so we were able to snag about 24 hours back in Phnom Penh to hit a few things we’d missed on our first go around. We walked around Wat Phnom and the central market, tried fried ants and Rachel even got up the courage to try one bite of the fertilized duck egg our hosts offered us. She was careful to get a small bite that avoided bones and feathers. Yuck! We couldn’t find the place that served fried tarantula and decided that was okay.