Who put the “pot” in Kampot?

“Let’s go to South Cambodia” she says. “Let’s go to Kampot” she says. Now when I start a blog like this we should know by now that this destination was somewhat challenging and we will look back on it and wonder why on earth did we let Mommy talk us into this one? You do not have a nice or moving blog picture on this one, we didn’t have anything to use!

Now one of these properties we spent 7 nights in and it was a dump, the other one we spent two nights in and it was lovely, any ideas?

Just as it looks, the one at the bottom is the lovely described Nomads Working Space. Now having seen a working space called KoHub in Thailand we were very impressed. Designed for professionals who are lucky enough to be able to work remotely. It is designed with workstations, high-speed internet, social groups, a cafe, even a video conference call meeting room. This one however was not that at all.

We thought, after the killing fields, won’t this be nice, meet some interesting traveling professionals, computer programmers, web designers etc. We can work effectively and quickly…….No. What we got was a collection of stray animals including puppies galore, cats, dogs, two monkeys, and a blooming goose, and all of their poop around the ground floor, reception area. Internet that didn’t work in our rooms, cold water shower, no cooking facilities, a single duvet on our double bed with a hole in it, no fridge, and even no toilet seat!!!

Kristi had booked us into Faulty Towers.

We quickly learned that the clientele in our accommodation was very nice, just not traveling working professionals. This was a hostel at best. They did, however, make us extremely welcome and invited us to their social evenings on the roof. Kampot is famous apparently for “weed” and our roommates were doing their best to smoke their way out of 2018 and into 2020, missing 2019 along the way. Our couple of trips to the roof after the kids were bedded down was probably the most interesting conversations we have had since leaving. I simply never knew any of this stuff before heading up the stairs above our room. Let me share my new found knowledge with you.

• We were told by Ben the Kiwi, when (not if, but when) we smoke weed for the first time one of two things will happen. 1) We will feel sleepy, if this happens, go to bed and sleep it off. 2) We will start to feel ill if this one happens then get amongst others that are also getting high in a group and this group effect will make us feel better. Eh Ben here is a better idea, leave the stuff alone.
• The Holocaust was a hoax because apparently, you could open the doors from the inside.
• The New Zealand government, like most, allows the sale of energy drinks such as Red Bull for one reason. It keeps us awake and focused longer so that we all work longer hours and therefore earn more and in return pay more tax! Crafty beggars, I thought, could this be true? Ben was not at this point feeling ill or tired.
• WWlll will start in 2019. They won’t be there because they will be so high it will take until 2020 for the effects to rub off.
• Civilisation actually started in the earth’s core. ( I wondered why I was so hot-blooded, thanks Ben, I now know).
• Kristi’s favorite, the world currency should be linked to the price of weed.

Ben then told us his plans for the next few years, he was hanging around here for a while (probably until all the weed was gone). Then he was going to climb aboard his 20-year-old motorcycle and make his way across into Vietnam, up into China, into Northern China and eventually Russia. I was impressed so the obvious words came out of my mouth, “Wow, that’s awesome, why that way?” He then proceeded to quietly, as if it was a secret, to tell us that somewhere between Northern China and Russia was about 10 hectares of weed that was growing uncontrollably. Even the Government had tried to control it and couldn’t so they gave up. For him, it was heaven on earth and he was going to find it come hell or high water. For Kristi and I, we will travel by Air New Zealand to The Cook Islands and call it good for a few weeks.

Now the pizza place above came highly recommended by the rooftop clients. Why? Because “happy” meant “happy”. All the pizzas come sprinkled not with parmesan cheese but with weed sprinkles. We were politely told to ask for half happy and half not happy so the kids didn’t eat the wrong side. I never thought of that, thanks again Ben, you’re a genius. Images of Charlie running away from me with the wrong pizza slice in his hand shouting “Me. me’ were coming into my head. No we did not order one.

We did find a couple of things to keep us sane though. A local hotel, one of three, was kind enough after we parted with $9 to let us use their pool for the day, so this destination was perfect. The kids had a blast and we used the opportunity to kick back and think Kampot was not that bad………….how wrong as there was more to come.

We were aware that our hostel actually arranged tours, how? Because every day we walked out of the room and through reception our lovely host reminded us of how much there was to do and the travel company he used was the only one to be trusted. So we took a chance and booked the waterfall trip with the kids, with his favorite company. The next day we turn up downstairs at the pickup time to be greeted by our hosts’ German worker in the oldest Tuk Tuk you had ever seen. The tour company he was referring to was clearly his so I knew the day was about to get a lot worse. Our driver was a nice guy but when five of you are crammed into a tuk-tuk and at 30 mph its screaming and leaning over to the right so much I had to keep looking at the back wheel. My thoughts about said wheel were right. A couple of K’s from the destination, BANG! We were in the middle of nowhere in sweltering heat with twin 2-year-olds crying and a pre-teen that didn’t want to come, I was frustrated and Kristi was probably two steps ahead of me and doing a great job of hiding her frustration. Today was a good day.

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Hans (or whatever his name was) told us, no worries, I will fix it. It is only less than 1 kilometer from here, start walking and I will meet you there. Now we were in about 90 degrees, 100% humidity and Kristi and I carrying the boys about 2 k’s, uphill and then…………we didn’t reach our destination. We reached the car park though. The few stairs access to the waterfall that our host told us was actually a mountain of steps that went way out of sight as high as we could see. I was soaked in sweat so looking forward to the waterfall to cool off. We, of course, got to the destination in a great mood, I was not happy, nor was Kristi, it was DRY SEASON! Hardly any water and poor Kristi had even more frustrating thoughts when we looked into the small pool that the trickle had formed where the boys, Lara and I were about to cool off in and saw little black bugs everywhere. “Everyone out!” she shouted the kids are not swimming in this they will be ill. You have got to be kidding me! I was so hot you could fry and egg on my head and I have hair!

We descended down the 1,000 steps and called a “Grab” tuk-tuk on the way down. The app that calls you a cab wherever you are and I was never so pleased to see the little cab moving on my map towards us as we were miles away.

We got back to the hostel to our host asking “Did you enjoy the falls”…….

Now it wasn’t all that bad somedays. We took the sunset cruise which the boys loved, Charlie got to sit with the Captain and steer the ship and the end result was a small area where the Kampot fire flys gave us a display.

Kampot is also famous for pepper. It grows at it’s best here in this part of Cambodia and we found a small pace that grew it and exported it everywhere (except NZ).

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The white and red pepper was awesome, and we purchased a small box for our collection back home, Charlie and Ashton used one of their new words “spicy” when trying it and everyone had a nice hour doing this.

We had to be out of the room a few times as Kristi was teaching and Lara’s grumpy sigh told me I had better find somewhere to entertain them. Let’s go to the night market. I received even less of an enthusistic look but when we got there they had carnival rides for the kids including bumper cars where Lara had the time of her life, of course so did Ashton & Charlie.

The best part of Kampot, The Burgershack. By far the single best burger Lara, Kristi and I had ever tasted. For 5 bucks we enjoyed a Bacon Double Cheeseburger, Fries and a Beer. It was fantastic. So much so we went back the next day as our mouths were still watering. We got chatting to the owner, a great English guy and low and behold Lara was in heaven. The guy had actually been an actor in his earlier days and starred in TWO Harry Potter movies! Lara had to get a photo with a HP actor.

Funny when something is so bad you actually see the good in things and that is a nice thing to do because it leaves you feeling grateful for what you do have and thankful for what you don’t. Kampot was a filthy place, we never felt clean for a week so our move to Kep was a welcome sight. About 45 minutes away, by the sea that we had missed so much and home to teh famous crab market.

We tried the local crab, and it wasn’t anything special. Tiny crabs that looked more like sparrow legs than crab legs but Kristi really enjoyed getting stuck in.

The hotel was lovely, Kristi and I got our own bedroom space, it was crystal clean, cheap and the food was great. We found a coffee stall and a lovely walk along the sea front and the hotel pool. We were back in civilization.

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Would we go back again, not a chance. But we were glad to have had the experience to see it and compare it.

The picture gallery isn’t big but here they are, enjoy

Next stop……… The Philippines