On to Kampot - Blog2

It turned out that it was best to stay in Bangkok for the night. In the morning I dashed around the areas of the city I know and bought a ticket on Bangkok Airways; the "boutique airline", as the company likes to call it. It all worked out very smoothly.

Bangkok's international airport is a paradigm of the modern world. It is the hub of South-east Asia and wears that mantle well. At all moments a jet is taking off and landing while on the margins of the runways a wild assortment of curious vehicles races around purposefully like ants managing a nest. By contrast Phnom Penh's airport consists of single runway and one longish building. After the plane landed it turned 180 degrees and drove to the terminal along the center of the runway; no other plane would be landing for a while. The disproportionate cargo of white, hard-edged, middle-aged males disembarked and made for customs. Visas for Cambodia can now be obtained at the airport. The process for getting one is accomplished efficiently by eleven smartly uniformed customs agents sitting in a row behind a long, yellow counter. Each part of the visa operation is done factory style. It starts with the passport-sized-photo-handler at one end and finishes with the passer-back at the other. All the other jobs are hidden from view behind the counter with the one exception of the visa-decal-peeler-offer-and-sticker-in-passport. Apparently this position had been forgotten about when the plans were drawn up, making this the only standing job in the operation. Once the visa has been obtained, one of twelve smartly uniformed customs agents then stamps you into the country. Welcome to Cambodia.

I ended up not being able to get down to Kampot to celebrate Mark's birthday. I probably could have done it if I were willing to spend the $30-40 on a private taxi, but I'm at the very beginning of my journey and I'd prefer to husband my resources. I don't think I would have been much fun at the party anyway as in Phnom Penh I went immediately to bed after an early supper.

I got to Kampot the following day crunched in the back of a mini-van with two blind masseurs and an interesting intern journalist from New Zealand. It's the beginning of the hot season which made it very hot and sticky in the over-crowded van, especially when we pulled over to stop for a variety of reasons. The road itself wasn't too bad; three years ago it was leveled out and blacktop laid down. But the New Year holidays have in fact already begun. During this time the Cambodians all head home to be with their families, which made for extremely crowded conditions on the road. Most of the traffic was comprised of the local version of the family car, namely motor-scooters that can fit four adults in very close discomfort. All of the expats have complained of Cambodian driving habits and there does seem to be very little idea of safety on the road. It seems the only concrete rule is that most of the vehicles should drive on the right. Apparently accidents are abundant. I can quite imagine that to be the case.

Kampot is lovely town. It was obviously a popular spot with the French when they were here. The center of town is very French in appearance, replete with shutters and an elongated central park area in the Gallic style. Years of neglect and a lack of funds and drive have given it a handsomely decayed look that faux finishers would die to achieve. According to Martin, a photographer who has been in Cambodia since the end of the Khmer Rouge era, Kampot was one of the latter's last holdouts. The town is starting to revive, new or renovated hotels, like the one Mark is currently working on, are beginning to open, as are restaurants and even a store selling souvenirs. It's still a long, long way from becoming a tourist haunt but that type of a future is most certainly visible.

When I walked into the Bokor Mountain Lodge for the first time, Mark was sitting at the bar tapping away at is laptop, while Jasmine looked over his shoulder. I suppose I could have said something profound a la Stanley to Livingstone, instead I offered a prosaic, "Hi, Mark. And you must be Jasmine." I gave them the suitcase I'd been carrying and they immediately opened it to discover the cornucopia of items that Mark's mother had sent. All of them were things that Mark had found very difficult to find or of substandard quality: linen table napkins, Dr. Bronner's soap, woodfiller and spackle to name but a few. Jasmine was delighted to receive the gifts from her future mum-in-law: two blouses that fit her perfectly, a pair of earrings and a beaded necklace that Mark's mother had made herself. I got a tour of the hotel right afterwards. Construction has been a slow process and by all accounts an exercise in endless frustration. Most of the plumbing hasn't been put in yet, the electricity has come on then gone out in one place then another and the quality of paint and workmanship leaves something to be desired. Apparently when the tile setters came to do their bit they managed to burst the water pipes and short out the electricity in every bathroom they worked in. But what has been finished is very nice. The building is from the French colonial period and has an elegant flair of old world charm. It promises to be a marvelous place when it's finally finished. They're hoping that will happen within a month's time.

Mark and Jasmine invited me and the photographer Martin to go up with them the following day to Jasmine's village to celebrate the impending arrival of the New Year. We're going to be taking a toilet along with us to the village as it has no sewer system of any description. I've been told that the bathroom is behind a bush. This will not do for Mark's mother when she and his father go there for the wedding later on this year. So for $50 a genuine toilet will be installed, the first one in the village. Jasmine also plans to bring along a banquet's worth of food. from the local market to take up with us. I went along with her and one of her cousins to the local market to buy it all.

Kampot's market is invitingly rambling, crowded and colorful. The non-stop activity renders it forever interesting. It's split up by shopping category with the butchers holding suzerainty over one area, fruits and vegetables over another; tailors, shoe-sellers, clothing, all have their own distinct place in the daily plan. We started our expedition in the realm of the fishmongers where women sit on small stools facing one another with huge bowls in front of them filled with shrimp, squid or live fish. We loaded up on the flat, sexily pink squid and then bought a large, dripping bag of translucent shrimp. The level of our rattan shopping filled further with clumps of good looking vegetables and finally a great wad of beef accompanied by a long and disturbingly unrecognizable innard of a cow. The cousin and I hefted the bag around after Jasmine. Our snaking path lead us to the shoe section. "Shoes are much cheaper in Kampot than in Phnom Penh," Jasmine assured us, "They smuggle them in from Vietnam." She quickly decided on a pair that suited her, to my great relief, and the shopping trip was over.

Back at the hotel five off us piled into a small car along with the driver and headed north. Jasmine's home village is about two thirds of the way to Phnom Penh. It was a repeat performance of the day before for me only in reverse and was made decidely more comfortable thanks to the cars air-conditioning. Once again the road was filled with traffic as the Cambodian made their way back to their families and like us would end the afternoon by visiting the local pagoda.

The village was linked to the main road by a red, dirt lane. Her family's house was just like all the surrounding ones being made of wood with stilts holding up part of a second storey that had a wide area below where the village could conduct the daily chores in the shade. After being greeted by the elders of the family in a flurry of handshakes and hands held together as though in prayer, we were ushered upstairs to sit as honored guests on the upper balcony. Mats had been laid down for us to sit on. Cushions were then brought for the foreigners to make us more comfortable and tea poured. This was followed by beer and attempts at conversation. One of Jasmines older uncles settled down with us. He was becoming helplessly drunk and Jasmine felt the need to apologize to us for his behavior. She must have been feeling quite nervous as she apologized for just about everything including for things like the heat and the loud talking style of her family. Naturally we forgave everything. One of the neighbors joined us to help break the ice. She was pretty, young, spoke passable English and had just returned from Phnom Penh where she is studying law at university. I was startled to hear this; Cambodia is such a poor country it seems nothing short of a minor miracle that a poor farm girl would be able to accomplish so much.

Eventually lunch arrived on a large tray. It was absolutely delicious. The squid were a delight, especially when lightly doused in the local, green pepper sauce. The beef had also turned out wonderfully. It sat in a rich sauce along with slices of onion and tomato with not a trace of the mystery innard in sight. The shrimp soup was a local delicacy made with generous helping off onion, lemon grass and a leafy herb I'd never seen before.

Jasmine and Mark dressed up to go to the pagoda. She was little embarrassed and asked me if her traditional costume made her look like an old woman. Naturally I assured her it didn't.

The trip to the pagoda turned out to be a photo-op. In two, threes and variously shifting knots, everyone took their place in front of the camera. The backdrops were supplied by the odd Buddhist/Hindu mix that defines the Khmer version of religion. One statue in particular stands out; a blue four-faced man with a Siva-like octet of arms, a weapon clutched in each hand. He stands on two tigers and is, I presume, the guard of the temple.

We had to hurry to leave the village. Twilight was arriving and driving at night in Cambodia is said to be quite dangerous, one of the biggest problems being untethered cows wandering absentmindedly on to the road. Fortunately the driver did a good job at keeping the speed down and us out of harm's way.