Kampot Trip - Part 7 - Scammed

Rotha got us back to Kampot in plenty of time, likely because the temple visit got cut short after my vertigo.  He dropped us off at a corner restaurant telling us he'd call the bus driver to pick us up there.  Promptly at 3:30 pm, the bus arrived, and we boarded.  The bus driver didn't ask to look at our ticket and I never gave it a second thought.

This bus headed for Sihanoukville, where we would eventually board the sleeper bus to Siem Reap.   Along the way we picked up and dropped off passengers, including three young monks.  I'd guess the age of the older monk at about 25, but the two youngest looked barely 10 years old.  Although I couldn't understand what they were saying, the young boys chattered as kids will do when they play together.  Although it was a fanciful thought, I imagined one of them pulling out a 'Transformer' toy from the sleeve of his robe, and I wondered if they'd ever done anything like that.

The day had been a hot one, overcast and muggy, and for the first time since we'd been in Cambodia, it began to pour... .... buckets.  The bus careened around corners and passed slower vehicles and people who stopped for cover.  At times the visibility was so poor I wondered if we would make it, or if we'd slam into something.  The bus stopped, and the monks got off, drenched before they'd gone only a few feet.

Running for cover

By the time we reached Sihanoukville, the rain had stopped as suddenly as it began.   We still had nearly three hours to wait before boarding the sleeper bus, and it might have been nice to explore the town, famous for its beaches and party atmosphere, but the bus terminal was on the outskirts.  We contented ourselves with exploring the bus terminal complex, grabbed some fried noodles at one of the food stands, then sat down to wait some more.  An hour later, Gordon wandered off and returned with some tins of peanuts for the journey.  He thought he'd also seen a bottle of wine in a display case, but the little old man who ran the kiosk wasn't letting it out of the case without payment.  I went over to have a look, and in my broken Khmer, managed to get the bottle of wine with a couple of plastic glasses (kao) thrown in....all for $1.00.

For the next two hours we watched as buses and people came and went.  Young men, clad only in their underwear, scrubbed buses down with soapy pads on long bamboo poles, and tossed buckets of clear water high up the sides of the buses to rinse them down.  No automatic bus wash (or even hoses) here.

Near our departure time, a bus arrived, and a man hollered for everyone to get off.  The bus was broken, he said, and pointed to another bus, commanding everyone bound for Phnom Penh to board.  I approached him and asked when the sleeper bus would come.  He asked for my ticket, and when I showed it to him, he growled 'Where did you get this?!'.  When said I'd bought it at the Kampot Riverview Guesthouse, he grabbed it from me, sat at a desk without a word, wrote out two new tickets, and kept mine.  He also asked me to write down my name, saying there'd be a free tuk-tuk waiting at the Siem Reap bus terminal for us.  Strange....These two new tickets had stubs attached...The one I'd given him didn't...But it still didn't register.

'Get on that bus' he said, and pointed to the double-decker bus with upright seats.  I began to refuse, trying to explain we'd purchased tickets for a sleeper bus.  'The bus is broken,' he said.  'Get on!', and realizing we had little choice, we boarded the bus with reassurance we'd be transferred to a sleeper bus in Phnom Penh.  To say I was upset is putting it mildly.  Not only had we paid for a sleeper bus, I had really been looking forward to my first time on one!

So there we were, crammed into a crowded bus.  Nothing more to do than sit back (not lay down) and enjoy the ride.  There's nothing better than humour to break a bad mood, and nothing else can get a few laughs going like a bottle of cheap wine.  I sneaked the bottle out of my bag, unscrewed the cap, poured some into our plastic cups, and we toasted.  Next came the peanuts....coated with chicken flavour.  (Chicken flavour? Yep, you read that right.)  Actually, it looked like CHSCKEN which really cracked me up.

Ginseng Wine - 23% alcohol
Tastes a bit like creosote.

 

'Coated with CHSCKEN flavour'
Pretty tasty, actually....

  
We managed to grab some sleep, and I woke with a stiff neck which made me even more anxious to stretch out in that sleeper bus.  (Sleeper bus? Did I say sleeper bus?)  In Phnom Penh, they herded us onto another double-decker bus.  Now I was furious.  But we were in a strange city, in the middle of the night!  What else could we do but get on the bus, and figure it all out when we got back to Siem Reap.

The bus was filled to capacity, and most of the seats were in poor condition.  Our seats wouldn't recline.  In place of the air vent above my head was a huge gaping hole that blasted arctic air.  I stuffed my kroma (scarf) in the hole, and tried, unsuccessfully, to get some sleep.  At 6:30 am, as we pulled into the Siem Reap bus terminal, another bus pulled in right behind us.   (You guessed it....the sleeper bus from Sihanoukville)  Of course, there was no free tuk-tuk waiting for us...... I wasn't surprised.

Later that day, we made some calls, and learned some interesting things.  In the end, we had to accept that we'd been scammed and there was nothing further we could do.  

 *******
Looking back, here is what I believe happened:  Rotha took our money for the bus tickets ($20 each), gave us a used ticket, and pocketed the money.  (I now know from sad experience that bus tickets are supposed to have a detachable part on one end, which ours didn't.  I also know that we are supposed to get one ticket per person, not one stub like Rotha gave us.)  We've since learned that several similar incidents have originated in Kampot.  It makes me wonder if  it's a scam that has been cooked up between Rotha and the bus driver in Kampot, as we weren't asked for our ticket when we boarded the bus there.  What better place to get used tickets than a bus driver?

When the man at the Sihanoukville bus terminal asked me where I got the ticket, and then later asked me our name for the 'free tuk-tuk', I wonder if he was planning to use this information to track down Rotha, the scam artist?  I hope so.

Bhuddism teaches that 'If you do good, you'll get good, and if you do bad, you'll get bad.'  After that awful episode was over, I wondered to myself what bad had we done to deserve this?  In retrospect, I see it differently now.  You know, when I handed that man the used bus ticket, he had every right to make us pay all over again, or leave us stranded in Sihanoukville.  Fortunately for us, he had a good heart, and said nothing... just wrote us out two valid tickets, and got us back to Siem Reap.  That was a good thing.  Funny how I was mad at him at the time, and now I realize I should have thanked him.  So often things aren't what they seem... 

******

Kampot Trip - Part 6 - Salt and Pepper

On our last morning in Kampot, when Rotha pulled up in the tuk-tuk to take us on the Salt & Pepper tour, things started to make sense.  Two evenings before, when faced with two exhausted and unsuspecting tourists (us), Rotha had seized a golden opportunity - He'd taken our $36, written us a bogus ticket for the tour, and borrowed or rented  a tuk-tuk to drive us around so he could pocket the profits.  Now, as we loaded our bags into the tuk-tuk we knew it, and he knew that we knew it.  Perhaps that's why he didn't speak more than twenty words the entire day, and although we'd paid for a guided tour, we ended up with a high-priced tuk-tuk ride to all the places listed in the tour brochure.

On the first leg of our ride, we passed through an area which appeared to be primarily populated by Muslims.  We'd seen some ladies in the Kampot market wearing head coverings, but weren't aware that this part of Cambodia is also home to many people who adhere strictly to Islam and the garb of their faith.  Riding past small villages, we saw women dressed completely in black robes with only their eyes showing, men and boys in white robes and caps, and a very elaborate mosque. 


Muslim man off to the far right



Mosque

We turned off the road at a sign indicating a pepper plantation with restaurant, bar and tours, but this wasn't  to be our destination.  Instead, Rotha took us to a small roadside plantation where a few people sat in the shade of a small rotunda while a monk, stripped to the waist, slugged away outside, digging up some ground in the hot sun.  I'm still not sure what the monk was doing or why, but it just struck me as curious.

A few steps away was a small pepper plantation, where we were fortunate to meet a young boy  eager to practice his English, who explained all about pepper cultivation.  We were amazed to learn that pepper plants have a vine-like growth habit, and some plants can be as old as 30 years.  Pepper grows in grape-like clusters.  The corns are green and hard at first, then as they mature, they form a red fruit over a large white seed, (similar to a chokecherry, I thought).  We learned that black pepper is made by drying the green peppercorns, red pepper comes from dried whole red peppers, and white pepper is produced by removing the outer red fruit, and washing and drying the remaining white seed.  

Kampot pepper is considered to be one of the best and most exotic in the world.  During the time of the Khmer Rouge, production was halted, and all but died off.  Currently, Kampot produces about 4,000 tonnes of pepper a year, and if you buy it anywhere else except Cambodia, it's pretty expensive.  Check out the prices and descriptions by clicking >>> here<<<. 

This young man knew a lot about pepper production

The young pepper plants are started from cuttings from the mature plants
These ones are about 3 months old
The hole next to the plant is for water

Nearly mature pepper plants, about 3 years old
As they mature, they are watered between the rows only

Can you see the clusters of green peppercorns?

The peppercorns turn red

After making or purchases, we hopped back into the tuk-tuk, again with no inkling of our next stop until we got to the salt flats.  There wasn't a soul around, nobody to give us any information, so it's a good thing Gordon knew something about how salt is produced from seawater.  

As far as the eye could see, there were square pools of water.
When the tide comes in, a gate is opened to flood the pools,
then it is closed to prevent the water from returning to the sea.
The seawater is then evaporated by the sun and the salt is collected

Salt crystals on the ground

Salt crystals are dirty and mixed with sand

There were many storage shacks like this one, filled with salt

Mounds of salt inside the shack

We wandered around the fields for a while, marveling in the wonders of nature, and the ingenuity of man.  It would have been interesting to know what happens to the salt, how it's harvested, where it's refined and sold.  That's another subject for a google seach, I suppose.

We hopped back into the tuk-tuk, with no idea where we were headed from there, until we arrived in Kep.  Once a bustling seaside resort, Kep was almost entirely abandoned during the reign of the Khmer Rouge.  Many buildings still lay in ruins.

We continued toward the seaside, where vendors sold their wares, mostly handmade.  I bought a few trinkets and some sweet treats, all for mere pennies.


Along the road, a horse cart



Kep Beach

I dipped my toes in the Indian Ocean

Buying some trinkets

Twenty small packets of sticky rice for about 50 cents

Yummy treat inside, still warm....

It was lunchtime, perfect time to head to the market for some fresh seafood. 

All kinds of seafood for sale - fresh, salted, dried.....

Gordon went for the grilled squid,
but I couldn't look another fish in the eye at that point...

More trinkets

I settled on half a jackfruit....

And yes.... I ate the whole thing....Delicious!

Being in Kep for such a brief period left us wishing we'd had more time to spend there, exploring or just walking on the beach, but we were watching the time, and with only a few more hours before we boarded the bus back to Siem Reap, we jumped back into the tuk-tuk, expecting to head straight back to Kampot.

We turned down a road with a sign pointing to Phnom Sosir Resort, and Rotha stopped at the foot of a long set of stairs leading to a temple.  Seeing the stairs, Gordon held back, thinking his knees wouldn't take the climb, but I forged ahead.  At the base of the stairs, I passed a man who followed me up.  At the top, he showed me stairs that led up further to a cave shrine.

Stairs up to the temple - I love the soft pastels

A monk contemplating in the shade

As we passed this on the way to the cave,
the man pointed and said 'Holy Cow'.
I replied 'We have the same saying in my country'.
I bet he thought I was nuts...

At the cave entrance was a steep narrow set of steps descending into the cave.  There was no handrail and the stairs seemed to drop off into nothingness.  I took a few steps down, felt my knees buckling, and had to turn back.  Vertigo had won.  Whatever beauty was in the depth of that cave would have to wait for the next visitor.

Home Sweet Home...sort of...

Hey!  We're back!  We arrived in Buffalo on March 8, and got back to Bayfield on March 10, but between severe jet lag, unpacking and doing all the things it takes to resume our life in Canada, I've barely been able to think, let alone write.

I'm feeling really wierd about this entry, because I still haven't finished blogging about our trip and about life in Cambodia, and the kids....and by saying 'We're back!', it's like this should be the last page of this blog.  But I'm not done yet!  Messing up the chronological order of the entries is kind of like leaving a story somewhere in the middle, half-finished, and then telling the ending.  A little part of me wonders if my readers will still want to come back to read the middle parts if they already know how the story ends. 

In no particular order, here are things that I miss about being in Siem Reap:
1) Hot weather (We left 37C and came home to 37F)
2) Not having to make my bed or clean my room
3) Not having to do laundry
4) Really good food at really good prices (ditto for wine and liquor)
5) Being able to wear flip flops everywhere
6) Being chauffeured around in a tuk-tuk or just being able to walk to wherever we needed to go.
7) The kids at Honour Village... I miss them big time...
8) The fantastic staff at MotherHome Guesthouse who made us feel like royalty...(to be featured in a blog soon!)
9) Our Cambodian friends, who were all so generous and warm ....(You know who you are....)
10) Free buffet breakfast at MotherHome, and free lunch at Honour Villiage  (I gained 10 lbs in 2 months - OH YES I DID)

What I am so happy to return home to:
1) My family and friends here
2) My own bed and my own pillow ( I LOVE my special pillow)
3) A wardrobe that has more than 14 items of clothing to choose from, (except I can only fit about 14 items right now anyways) 
4) Real decaffeinated coffee...and flavoured decaf... (A big treat for me, although I know you coffee snobs will think I'm a freak).
5) Living quarters at least 10 times larger than we had in Cambodia  (Holy cow!  We are so lucky..)
6) Good, fast internet.  (I promise to upload videos and more pictures soon)
7) My own home...(home, sweet messy home)

 What it sucks to come home to:
1) Two months worth of laundry and cleaning
2) A knee-high stack of mail - ditto for voicemail
3) Last years Christmas presents (and Christmas tree) still not put away - (Wait! maybe this is good... Like Christmas all over again *sigh*)
4) A storm that dumped ten inches of heavy wet snow and broke the top of one of our mature trees (I hope it survives - We braved the elements and went out in knee-deep snow to splint the break and I pray we've given it a fighting chance)

Snow in the back yard
It's melted a lot in 2 days



Heavy, wet snow in the front yard
There's green grass under there somewhere...

5) a 10 lb gain on the scale...OH YES I DID!!...(Weight Watchers here I come with a fist full of money..)
6) Jet lag.. 12 hours time difference, so our day & night is totally backward. 
7) A big repair bill for our car because the brakes seized up again... (Thankfully this year it was only 1/5  the cost of last year's bill...)
8) Winter coats, boots, mitts...

Why I feel so lucky and what I am grateful for:
1) The Japan earthquake & disaster happened 3 days after we got home.  (Another 3 days and it could have been us...)
2) We got to see Preah Vihear Temple only 5 days before fighting broke out there.  Who knows when the next tourists will be allowed to go... (5 days later and we would have been in the middle of the bombing...)
3) We got to see Bokor Palace before the road to the top was completed...(Our group had the place to ourselves.  Once the road is finished, it will be packed with throngs of tourists ).
4) All our wonderful friends in Siem Reap who made our stay feel like home.  You know who you are...
5) Being an honoured guest at a Cambodian wedding... Having our photo taken with the bride and groom as special guests, and dancing the first dance with the bride and groom... wow..
6) Being fortunate enough to be able to go to the other side of the world for two months (and to have the resources to do it)
7) Lots and lots of other things, some mentioned above....

Kampot Trip - Part 3 - First Morning

On our first morning in Kampot, we woke very early.  A squealing fan will do that for you.  With nearly two hours to kill before our first tour started, we set out toward the market, in search of our favourite Cambodian breakfast, noodle soup.  

The road heading toward the market.
Not much traffic early in the morning

A lumber yard along the way

Although we didn't find soup at the market, I did get some interesting photos...

A lady shows off her purchase -
a live (tranquilized) chicken.

We discovered how they make 'fry bread'
Gordon bought a piece...still warm...

This little girl had a table set up selling tickets, I think.
It brought to mind girl scout cookies.

Two young muslim ladies selling fish.

Inside the market were a lot of fruit & vegetable vendors.
Biggest jackfruit I've ever seen!

Sorting out mussels

Baskets for sale!!
The upside down ones are chicken coops

We finally found a restaurant that looked 'safe' and went in for our noodle soup breakfast.  Delicious!  Man, it's really hard to leave the pork bones on the plate when you have a face like this looking up at you...

Please, please....

We walked back to our guesthouse which was down a little dirt road...

Gordon heading back to the guesthouse

Boat sailing past the guesthouse
Really, it's a nice setting.
Too bad it's not a nice place.

Rotha tried to talk us into taking a room with air conditioning and hot water for our second night.  He showed me two different rooms, both of which had filthy toilet seats.  One had a cracked sink, the other a broken shelf in the bathroom.  I was sure we could get much better for the same rate, so I said we'd think about it and decide when we got back from our tour.

Hey, how classy is this place? 
They have a car ramp (and fresh tire tracks)
leading up to the front door.

Kampot Trip - Part 1 - Getting There

One of our favourite Khmer dishes is Lok lak.  The secret ingredient for producing the tastiest Lok lak dipping sauce is Kampot pepper, grown only in.... (you guessed it).... Cambodia!   Selling around the world for at least $19 an ounce, Kampot pepper is considered to be the 'champagne of peppers'.  You can't come all the way here and not buy some, so we set off last Wednesday on a wild adventure to the town of Kampot (in Kampot Province) - Gordon wanted to make sure we were getting the real deal.


Throughout Cambodia, bus travel is surprisingly inexpensive.  For the first leg of our journey from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, we opted for express mini-van service, featuring luxurious seating and a comfortable ride - a bargain at $8 per person.  The operative word here is 'express'.  The driver flew along the highway at breakneck speed, leaning on the horn every two minutes to warn everybody to get out of his way.  Apparently he was either late for a hot date, or preparing for his debut in the Indy 500. 

Gordon waiting to board the express mini-van
The passenger behind him is from Paris.

We boarded the mini-van at 6:45 and were given a boxed breakfast -
Fresh sweet roll and bottled water

 

During our 'rest stop', I chatted in French with an interesting man who, at the age of 15, fled to France from Cambodia in 1979, after the Pol Pot regime.  When this man, who drives taxi in Paris for a living, also expressed his concerns about the driving, I really began to wonder how safe we were.  Obviously I wasn't the only passenger with white knuckles.  Fortunately we arrived in Phnom Penh intact - a full hour ahead of schedule. 

Mini-van driver cooling off the engine

I've never had a strong desire to visit Phnom Penh, mainly because I don't care much for big cities.  I've also heard a lot about the crime and drug problems there, and I prefer to avoid trouble when I can, but here we were in the midst of it.  We were immediately swarmed by tuk-tuk drivers eager for a fare.   At this point, choice became a matter of 'eeny-meeny-miney-moe', and we picked one... who charged us $6 to get to the 'other' bus station, six kilometers away!  Seeing as we'd just paid $8 each to get all the way from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh in a luxury bus, $6 did seem a little outrageous.  However, we'd only bought our ticket to Phnom Penh and had no idea what time the next bus to Kampot would leave, or even how to get to the bus station, so we were in no position to argue or negotiate prices. 


The tuk-tuk sped through the city, past markets, tall buildings, and people.  Lots of people.  Lots of motos.  Lots of bicycles.  I can only describe Phnom Penh as 'Siem Reap on steroids', except that Phnom Penh has large office buildings and not as many resort hotels.  Everywhere there were lots of tourists, and lots of Cambodians, doing what tourists and Cambodians do, only more of it.  Same crazy traffic, with one difference - Pedi-cabs.  Same crazy traffic patterns.  Our driver didn't even blink when he rode past the 'Do not enter' sign and went the wrong way down a one-way street. 

Market stall in Phnom Penh
Birdhouses or spirit houses??

Pretty lady wearing a hat and a helmet

Pedi-cab!

Crazy traffic!

Yep, 'Do Not Enter'!

At the bus station, we learned we'd have to wait three hours for the bus to Kampot.  (It could have been worse - we might've had to spend the night in Phnom Penh.)  The tuk-tuk driver tried to convice us to go to the Killing Fields rather than wait at the station and offered to drive us there for $15 round trip.  When we learned the entrance was an additional $20, we decided to take a pass.  (We'd already been to the Killing Caves, which had been emotionally draining enough for me.)    Instead we decided to look for a restaurant to eat lunch.  We walked up and down the street three or four blocks each way, but other than street food, we could not find a place to eat.  We returned to the bus station and had fun observing the Cambodian men who hung out there playing chess.  In another corner, about ten men gathered round an old TV, totally engrossed in an American movie which was dubbed in Cambodian, with English subtitles.  The bus station is situated in a part of Phnom Penh not frequented by foreigners at all.  The only barangs we saw were a couple of girls waiting for a bus to Sihanoukville.

A chicken was tied onto one of these bags
waiting to board the bus.
I wonder if it rode in the bus or the baggage compartment?

Gathered around watching TV at the bus station

Finally we boarded the bus to Kampot.  It was an interesting ride that took us through several small villages and through the seaside town of Kep.  Just as the sun was setting around 6:30, we arrived in Kampot.  It had been a 12-hour journey, and the real adventures hadn't even started yet! 

Sign on the bus to Kampot

The bus had a TV screen with Cambodian karaoke
Next they played a very bad movie dubbed in Khmer
that ran through three times.....yawn...