Kampot: A (French colonial) provincial capital. One could almost imagine walking onto a set for Camus' 'l'etranger', except its not so dusty. But it was incredibly hot. And as soon as you left town and hit the dirt roads it got very very dusty. The river meant cool breezes in the morning and evening but stepping but in the afternoon was hotter than anywhere than had been in SE Asia. I'd been there four days and hardly seen anything out of walking distance from my hotel. A bout of (sort of) flu) (one of my fellow hotel guests helped greatly by asking me if I had ever had dengue fever) and a batch of work put paid to that. So I decided to slip it all into one day and do the 'grand tour.' The problem was that the grand tours on offer are designed for two or more people, so I had to discussion to get a reasonable price.
My taxi driver picked me up at 0845 and we headed for our first stop, the salt fields just outside Kampot. This is one of the poorest communities in the area (some people at my hotel were working at schools so had an idea of the social geography) and it felt kind of wrong and awkward to just turn up and take photos and not put anything into the community. Harvesting salt seems like very hard work, is largely seasonal and the workers have very little control over 'the means of production'
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We then went onto visit an impressive (though not easily photogenic) limestone cave and an impressive pepper and durian plantation. Kampot used to be world famous in France for its pepper production and retains that reputation today. It actually has a geographic designation - presumably dating back from colonial times.
The best (and worst) bit of the day was driving along all the back roads looking at the smallholder agriculture as we went by. My tuc tuc driver was into food and every time we passed a new crop he told me what it was. This evolved into a kind of game with me trying to pre-empt him. He didn’t know the English for marrow and there were a couple of squashes (growing on trellises) that we didn’t recognise. At a couple of points we stopped the tuc tuc and went out into the field to have a closer look.
We passed morning glory (two varieties: the wild local one that grows in ditches. and the cultivated Chinese variety), maize, tomatoes sugar cane, chillies and lettuces. People were obviously growing these on a market gardening scale rather than just for home consumption. There were pigs, ducks, chickens and cattle (though the later looked very malnourished). The blessing of water became obvious. Settlements with irrigation had their second paddy crop planted, had green and fertile plots, more livestock and the villages were more densely inhabited with better quality buildings. Water – source of all life. Everywhere we went to children screamed out ‘hello, hello’ at see a farang pass.
But the journey was also a curse in that the roads were dusty and bumpy and I was felling a bit weak after my bout of flu and didn’t appreciate being flung around in the back of the carriage. So I was kind of glad when we got to our destination: Kep. Famous for its crabs and beaches. It was once the Cannes of Cambodia and its tree lined white chalk beaches are probably the most beautiful I have ever seen – anywhere - ever. It also feels like a ghost town. Being the Cambodian bourgeoisie’s favourite watering hole the Khymer Rouge were particularly ruthless in razing it to the ground. There are burnt out villas and vacant sea front lots all over the pace. Perhaps the beauty of the place makes it all the more poignant. The beach was quite simply the most beautiful that my pinkies have ever squeaked on. I was tempted to spend a few days there – but the ghosts of the past seemed too close and to still infect the town. One day I hope it will arise from the ashes It surely has the potential to be one of the finest resorts in South east Asia
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