Kampot

The slow roll of the the fishing boat engine slowly gets louder and slowly fades as it putters upstream to some special area unknown to me. A couple nights ago I took the moto up to find the end of that river where apparently a lake sits. After passing through village after village I reached a closed off gate as the road continued on. A Chinese dam projected blocked my access. The river is free game for these fishing boats though. Maybe eventually they hit a wall and they have to fish there. Maybe there are plenty of fish before the damn. One fishing boat rolling by has turned into a fleet of five or six within my view. There must be some good fishing upstream.

Nagahouse is my current home. The name of the bar/restaurant/guesthouse is a compound word made from “naga” and “house”. Naga being the name of a Hindu deity that resembles a large, evil-looking snake with a cobra-like head. Even though Cambodia is over 95 percent Buddhist, their brand of Buddhisms has strong ties with their Hindu past. In Cambodia you can find the Naga included in statues of Buddha, on the corners of temple roofs, on some of the bank notes, and even in their story of origin.

Here on the deck of naga house, the staff is just starting to stir. Maybe the boats on the Tuek Chhu River are their daily wake up call. The Tuek Chhu is not a very long river but it is quite wide. Its waters flow from Elephant Mountain and Preah Monivong National park, passing the small city of Kampot, before its arrival in the Gulf of Thailand. Nagahouse is just a five minute moto ride upstream from Kampot.

Kampot is a pleasant, river-side town in Southern Cambodia. The area is a draw for both foreign and local tourists year-round because of its location, close to both siring beach and cool mountain air. Just 25 km to the southeast you find the beaches of Kep. Kep is famous in Cambodia for their crab. When paired with Kampot's pepper, they make a tasty yet annoying dish (it was my first time eating crab). From Kep, you have access to both Rabbit Island and Phu Quoc. About 30 km in the opposite direction you're in the high plateau of Preah Monivong National Park. The switchbacks make for a fun ride and you can feel the air get cooler as you climb up the mountain. There isn't too much to see at the top. We visited a waterfall that is very large but dry as it is not rainy season. We also visited a temple where young Buddhist worked the landscaping as I took pictures of their nagas and their caged monkey. Finally, there was an old church and casino to visit. The buildings are no longer in use, and they once made up the front in the war between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam.

Kampot itself consist of a nicely-maintained riverfront where you find a lot of the nicer restaurants and bars. Many of the buildings are constructed in French colonial style with tree lined streets that give the town a really pleasant feel.

From Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville to Kampot and Kep, views from the road suggest that the river is a key component in the lives of Cambodian people. In so many locations across the countryside you see a line of houses that, upon closer inspection, is constructed along a river. The traditional Cambodian houses, whether at a river or on land, are built on stilts. The area under the stilts usually contains a couple of hammocks and a motorbike. Whenever the road crosses over water I find it fun to look either upstream or downstream. I'm sure to either see a village constructed on the water, boats rowing, or both. With about one more week left in Cambodia we're heading North. Looking at the map and the waterways that the road follows, we're sure to see more of this kind of lifestyle.