Kampot

Kampot was lovely, a nice break from the dusty honking frenzy of Phnom Penh. It was a chance to explore a bit of the Cambodian countryside, with Brahma cattle, monks, shrines, hammocks, and rice paddies. Tuk-tuks and motorcycles transport just about everything! One motorcyclist had about ten dead chickens on each side, feathers on, feet tied together. Another motorcycle transported a giant block of ice. A man walking a bicycle to which at least two dozen coconuts had been attached. Tuk-tuks transporting construction materials, durian fruit, bananas, fancy dresses, mattresses, you name it!

Buddhist monks in their orange robes cheerfully roaming the dusty orange streets. Most homes have little shrines at their entrance, and then of course we passed many stores selling shrines. “There’s a store for shrines?” asked Declan. People resting in hammocks under their stilted houses to escape the heat of the day.

The Kampot region is famous for its Kampot peppers and its stinky durian fruit; there is even a statue at a traffic roundabout honoring the durian!

We did some rock climbing with Climbodia, toured the pepper plantation, kayaked down the Kampot river, had a riverboat tour with a Viennese expat named Bjorn, but mostly we relaxed at the excellent Greenhouse guesthouse.

Greenhouse is located a few kilometers outside of town. Owned by a Frenchman named Stefan, its touches are comically French and most excellent. Ashtrays everywhere, a bidet spray in every bungalow, a long list of excellent wines, very nice French cheeses and excellent French fare in the middle of the Cambodian countryside! The main restaurant/bar was originally a bar called Maxine’s in Phnom Penh; it was slated to be demolished in the name of development, and the Greenhouse people disassembled it, moved it to Kampot, and reassembled it. I complimented Stefan on this achievement; he told me, “you can do anything if you are French!”

Greenhouse accepts cash and Bitcoin, but not credit credit cards…

It was interesting to talk to Bjorn, our guide on the Kampot river tour

He talked a lot about various political problems in Cambodia. How the Chinese are taking everything over. How they bought out Sihanoukville to turn it into another Macau, and how it changed in a very short time for my fishing village to play some skyscrapers. When he visited recently, he thought he had taken a wrong turn someplace because he totally didn’t recognize the place, with all of its cleaning new buildings built by Chinese workers laboring around the clock.

The US dollar has been a second currency here in Cambodia, but it seems that it will soon be replaced by the Chinese yen. The Chinese are investing a great deal of money in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, which makes it easier for China to count on the support of those countries in ASEAN (kind of like an Asian version of the European Community).

Bjorn talked about how the rural children do not really have to go to school, and that there is a lack of teachers after the Khmer regime. Some of the teachers in some of the rural schools are just older students, not actual teachers. So many teachers were killed and so many young people did not have the opportunity to go to school during the Khmer Rouge.

Bjorn talked about how pockets of Khmer Rouge survived in Cambodia until late 90s. And if you think about anybody living in Cambodia is either survivor (or descendant) or ex-Khmer. Hun Sen has been Prime Minister of Cambodia since 1998; according to Bjorn (and my brief Google search), he is one of the richest leaders on the planet, right after the Sultan of Brunei. He apparently gets elected by majority of the vote but it seems that much of the opposition has been imprisoned for “treason”.

Stefan, the owner of the Greenhouse, ask me about my boat ride with Bjorn. I told him how lovely it was, with the fruit trees in the sunset and the birdwatching, and that it had been interesting to talk about politics.

“He talked to you about politics? I would never do that!”

“ Cambodia has given me everything, it is given me a family, just given me a business, it is good he respects. But I would never start to talk about politics with anyone. Mostly for the safety of the 22 people who work here”

Declan and I both spent a morning at a place called Climbodia, where a Belgian man named David has started up a rock climbing business. There is a large protected cave, which at some point was a Buddhist monastery destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. Most of the rock climbing takes place in and around this cave; I wondered if he rented the land or what exactly was his arrangement might be.

“Oh, I just rent. I used to think that I would like a lease, but now I know that the lease is meaningless. I have many friends who think that they are protected because of their lease, and then along comes someone else with more money and they are out.” David told me.

Declan liked Climbodia enough that he went back a second day, and I took advantage of his second day of climbing to take a brief visit to a pepper plantation, La Plantation. It turns out that Kampot is famous for its peppers, and the subtlety of spices. I didn’t have time to the cooking class, or the highly rated Khmer Roots Cafe, but it was interesting to see the pepper plantation, and how the tiny red peppercorns are separated by hand from the green peppercorns. The area historically produced a lot of peppers, but it all got shut down during the Khmer Rouge. This pepper plantation was re-established around the year 2000, and a French couple bought it 2015. Now, along with the pepper business, they’re also supporting sending children to local schools and training young people in English and hospitality.

It’s interesting to see the relationship between economic development, community development, and preservation. At La Plantation, they are clearly working on community development. There was also an old pagoda that they moved from the town to the plantation to serve as its main building. It is a very lovely building. I hope that they moved it in order to preserve it, rather than thank that they robbed the town of their pagoda.

As we watched the sunset on the Kampot river with Bjorn, a sliver of a moon appeared. Unlike in the US, where I always see the crescent moon as “C”, this moon looked liked a “U” or a smiley face. “I knew that Cambodia was the place for me, ” said Bjorn. “Even the moon was smiling at me!”

On to Mondulkiri and the Elephant Valley Project!