Waiting for godot - I mean dolphins

After a delicous time cooking in Phnom Penh I moved on to Kratie, my last stop in Cambodia. My bus being at 6.45am I caught some breakfast at the now familiar bus station near the central market. 2 baguettes - one with Laughing Cow spreadable cheese and the other stuffed with pork floss - perfect travelling food. This particular bus was going all the way to Pakse in Laos so I met many people stopping at various points along the way. I'd prebooked my accomodation as I do on travel days to make life as stress free as possible at the other end, trudging around a new place with a heavy pack in the afternoon sun is not much fun. Anyhoo - we arrived in Kratie and I got my first glimpse of the mighty Mekong. I was met at the bus stop (a new experience for me!) and tuk tuk'ed to The Balcony Guesthouse. I met many interesting people on Balcony's balcony. A few of us banded together to go and see Kratie's famously rare Irrawaddy dolphins. After a half hour tuk tuk ride through villages along the riverside we arrived at the boat launch. $7 got us a 90 minute ride during which we saw plenty of dolphins though you have to be pretty quick to spot them. As for taking photos I had no hope with my old camera so you will have to take my word for it that I saw them! It was lovely being out on the water listening for the sound of dolphins surfacing.

The next day i headed over to Koh Treung an island in the middle of the river. Its has no tourist infrastructure and the thing to do is hire a bike and do the 9km circut around the island. The path is mostly shaded and relatively smooth. It was the perfect end to my time in Cambodia. Next stop Laos and the 4000 islands.

Making an amok(ery) of the local cusine

Back to Phnom Penh for the third and final time and I had enough energy to get to the National Museum. Its rather lovely and contains statues from the Angkor temples putting them further into context. There was an animation made by Monash Uni visualising Angkor in 1200 which was really interesting. Equally interesting was a display of an archaelogical dig undertaken on a mound in the middle of the West Baray that is only uncovered in times of severe drought. It revealed a pre-Angkorian necropolis adding more data to the prehistory of the area. I was most taken by a statue that had been situated at "The Gate of the Dead"at Angkor Thom. Must find out more.

The next day was cooking class day and as far as I'm concerned a must do. Called imaginatively enough The Cambodian Cooking School, it was a full day of cooking Khmer classics and included a guided tour of a local market. The market was amazing - watching a live fish get thumped on the head then cleaned and scaled was certainly an eye opener! Learning about the variety of eggs was fascinating too - for the record duck eggs are very popular here and come in fresh, embryo and preserved states. (Image right: dried fish) Then it was off to the kitchen to get our hands dirty (word to the wise - fresh tumeric stains!). The first dish was fried spring rolls with a taro and carrot filling. I wrecked my first one but the rest turned out fine. This was followed by banana flower salad with chicken which is a bit like Vietnamese coleslaw. And then the main event - fish amok. Amok is a classic Khmer dish of fish in a yellow curry sauce steamed in a banana leaf (below right). We bashed our own curry paste in a mortar and pestle (a good upper arm workout!). We shredded, sliced, stirred and steamed until it was ready. Words cannot describe how good amok is - well, there are two, deliciously rich. Then, just when we thought we couldn't eat any more it was time for dessert - fresh mango with sticky rice, coconut and a caramel sauce made from palm sugar and coconut cream. All in all a gut bustingly good day. And as it was pelting with rain probably the best place to be. I slept well that night which was just as well as I had a 6.45am bus the next day to Kratie - my last stop in Cambodia before crossing into Laos.

Kampot - part the second

The great visa hunt concluded it was back to hang with some friends I'd made in Kep andKampot. Its been a bit of to-ing and fro-ing from Phnom Penh but who am I to pass up great company? There was much Beer Lao drunk (I prefer it over the local stuff Ankor and Anchor - and as for the stout they call Black Panther, well lets just say the people at Guiness have nothing to worry about!). More lazy times with BLTs to sustain me. I did manage to get on a bicycle for the first time on this trip. I circumnavigated Kampot from the old train station, across the new bridge, down to the big wat and the spot where the fishing boats dock and back over the rickety old bridge. Rumour is that in the near future the old train line from Phnom Phenh to Shianokville via Kampot will reopen for passengers. I'd love to ride the rails in Cambodia when the time comes. That said its easy to get around on the buses (Blakey) and the roads are good. But it was time to say goodbye and head back to the big smoke for a cooking class - finally (the class not the goodbyes).

The great visa chase

Got to Phnom Penh, checked into my expensive, lets treat myself hotel (Goldie Boutique), a bit of pre dealing with bureaucracy lunch and it was off to the Vietnamese Embassy. To my surprise and delight my 3 month multiple entry visa would be available the next day. And the following day I managed to get my Laos visa the same day. Brilliant! That said I didn't do half the things I meant to in PP. I did get to Wat Phnom, had a walk past the Royal Palace and had a beer at the real FCC - I marked the visit by buying an FCC stubbie holder (my first ever believe it or not!). I finished my book group book and strated a very amusing Kinky Friedman adventure about Willie Nelson and an Indian curse. I got a $4 haircut (quite a successful one too!) and drank beer on a rooftop watching the peak hour traffic around the Independance monument. This lead to an"Ï'm in Cambodia"moment - the point where you pinch yourself, forget the trivalities and and remember where you are.

In Kampot in an $8 room

My expectations of what I thought I needed in a hotel room have been confounded in Kampot. I travelled on from Kep with one of the people I met at Botanica who is on a much tighter budget than me and we managed to find a couple of $8 rooms with a fan and cold water that were clean and comfortable (The Little Garden for the record). Kampot is a bit more happening than Kep, it has lots of bars run by expats with happy hours and western comfort food that play music that makes you turn to your companions and exclaim "oh my god, I haven't heard this song for ages!". I certainly didn't do much over the 2 days I spent here - a walk to the market, watching the sunset over the rivers with a beer in hand, reading. That's about it really. But becoming aware I need to get my arse into gear to move on to Laos I decided to go back to Phnom Penh and sort out both my Laos and Vietnamses visas however long that would take then head back to Kampot for the weekend to hang out with friends. So back on the bus I went.

Hammock Time!

I left Phnom Penh at some ungodly hour bound for Kep. After a pleasant enough journey (Penhom Penh Soyra are the best I've travelled with so far) I reached the seaside. My flagging spirits were lifted at the first glimpse of the ocean. Kep is a tiny place, its the sort of place you check into a bungalow and hang there for however long you stay. That's what I did! I stayed at Botanica, run by a Belgian guy with great food and a well stocked bar. I met a wonderful cast of characters including a fellow museum AV tech from England! Kep really only became a destination in the early part of the 20th centruy when the French built villas along the coast and named it Kep-sur-Mare. These villas were looted and burnt by the Khmer Rouge and most remain burnt out husks - but the most photogenic husks (left)! Callum Morton may have put a ruin outside the Arts Centre for Melbourne Festival but Kep has the real thing! However there is progress and some of them are being renovated awaiting Kep's inevitable transformation into a resort town. It has no beach to speak of but the walk along the coast road past the crab markets is lovely. One of the highlights of my 3 days in Kep was a visit to a restaurant at the crab markets to eat crab with green Kampot pepper. People rave about the crab and the pepper and they are justified on both counts. Kampot pepper (specific to this part of Cambodia) has a gentle heat when dried and is mild and delicious when green. Oh, and the sunset from our oceanside table was beautiful (left). Seriously, if you come to Cambodia go to Kep, its the perfect place to recharge after too many temples and the hustle and bustle of Phnom Penh.

Books read

Everything Is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer

Took about 40 pages to get in to and one bit made me cry.  A bit too esoteric to be a really good book.

In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

Fabulous.  So meticulously written, it took him 5 years to write and it shows (in a good way!) and absolutely engaging.

The Club Dumas - Arturo Perez-Reverte

A nice diversion - Reverte writes intelligent whodunnits, this on is a riff on The Three Musketeers.  Makes me want to read the original.