It’s a big post today. We hope you’re warm and comfortable.
Kampong Cham is the sixth largest city in Cambodia, which isn’t much of a thing to brag about, but the medium size, relaxed atmosphere, and location along the impressive Mekong River made it one of our favourite places in the country. The roads were spacious, and far less terror-inducing than driving in Phnom Penh. The street food was plentiful and inexpensive, and the locals friendly. The overall feeling of the town was safe and slow-paced, and I’ll say it again: the river was impressive.
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Accommodation
There were numerous guesthouses in town, and after peering around a few that were mentioned online, we thought, “Screw it”, and chose an obscure one down a side street named ‘Phkay Ras Guesthouse’, which was probably geared towards Khmer people. The sort of Khmer people who pay by the hour. Opposite our lodging was ‘Monorom I Hotel Massage and KTV’ (KTV is Karaoke), which was busy with the comings (pun intended) and goings of men. Some of this red light spill must have overflowed into our little guesthouse, because the moans of quick sex wafted through our walls in the evening. The owners seemed surprised that we wanted to stay, and they gave us what can only be described as ‘Phkay Ras’ Penthouse Suite’, which was a clean, corner unit on the top floor. Most of the other rooms didn’t have windows, but we had two and a balcony. All for $5 per night. Did I mention it was clean? Yes? Well, it truly was. We were pleasantly surprised.
Our chalet: the Phkay Ras Guesthouse. Our room was the top corner.
A storm brewing upon the street which our chalet stood.
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Getting around
Dary (unsure of spelling) ran a little restaurant that catered to western tastes called ‘Lazy Mekong Daze’. We weren’t particularly interested in her food, but she had the cheapest motorbike rental we could find – $3 per day.
“Manual or semi-auto?” She asked.
“Anything,” I replied.
“Good, then you can take the semi-auto. This is my nephew’s bike – he’s ten-years-old, and I always try to rent his bike first, because then he gets the money. That one is my sister’s, and the automatic is mine.”
Dary turned out to be a wealth of information. She gave us some home-made printed maps (in French) and told us more places to visit that we could possibly see in our short time. The bike we rented was a little old, but all the gauges worked (rare for rentals), and the engine purred smoothly. It had obviously been taken care of.
Dary also arranged bus tickets without a markup, and so we bought our onward tickets through her too. She was so lovely that we even ate there one night – she cooked a mean pizza.
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Activities
We tried to make the best of our motorcycle, which sometimes meant driving to particular attraction, and sometimes driving down random roads for an hour just to see what was there. This meant we passed through many small villages and open fields, and witnessed cows sprinting onto roads, vans laden with unimaginable quantities of cargo, strange hybrid tractor things, ox carts, and kids screaming, “Hello!” as we zoomed by.
One spot we intended to visit was Banteay Prey Nokor, where the Angkor-style Wat Nokor Banchey temple sits in a relatively dismal and overgrown compound, strewn with rubbish. We tried our best to ignore the plastic bottles and focussed instead on the beautiful, ancient carvings. The wat was built in the 11th century, and the legend of its construction involves incest and murder. I can recite the full story in the comments below, if anyone cares to ask.
He may be half a man, but he makes up for it in other ways.
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The French Watchtower was constructed in the early 20th century. It was a tall, hollow, brick structure, and once upon a time fires were lit at the top so the governor could be warned of impending peril, assuming he wasn’t taking his evening bath.
Inside the tower was a perilous set of steps – practically a ladder – leading to the top. Spots of rust were present, and it looked far too unsafe to ascend. Naturally, we climbed it. This post’s header shows the view from the top: Caroline looking out over the Mekong.
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An hour of driving led us to Wat Maha Leap, a wooden wat more than 100-years-old. It had fallen into dismal repair, which made it all the more appealing. Half the joy of this trip was getting there, as there were no signposts, or even paved roads for the jouney. We bumped along, following the east bank of the Mekong through gorgeous little villages and sparse fields, past rubber orchards and over bridges. At every fork in the road we stopped to chat with whoever was present, asking directions, buying freshly made sugarcane juice, or just saying hello. Even if we hadn’t found the wat, it would have been worth it for the wonderful drive.
Sugarcane juice. Made fresh in a hand roller crusher machine thing for 25c a pop. Side note: the table cover is advertising Black Panther Beer, a reasonably good 8% stout. Much tastier than any of the other SEA swill we’ve tried.
The outside of Wat Maha Leap.
And the inside.
Floor, beams, roof.
Each beam was an entire tree, and some of them were decaying worryingly.
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The rest of the time we simply drove and explored, the absolute best way to travel!
A small handful of the hundreds of houses we saw. And, just to throw out the pattern, a cow in a trailer being pulled by a motorbike.
A bunker in the middle of nowhere. It reminded us a lot of this album cover, so Caroline threw some effects on it to increase the similarity.
Playing with sticks inside the bunker.
The drivers in Cambodia are completely insane, so it’s necessary for barricades to be trundled out when mass kids need to cross the road.
We held a ‘Most Expressive Eyes’ competition with several macaques. This one was the winner.
And this one was also the winner.
And this one was chewing on my throttle. Bastard.
A wat without a name (that we can remember). A part we didn’t photograph was a small stupa containing a man, a donation plate, and a huge concrete lotus flower filled with (real) human skulls. The very sad-looking man couldn’t speak much with us, but we understood ‘Khmer Rouge’ well enough.
A kind of peculiar Cambodian meal, likely of French influence. A bread roll, that you stuff with everything else on the plate: pork, pickled veg, and greens. Yum!
A teeny kitty in a small food shop. We probably ate fried rice too, but kitty…
Top left: dried rice straw used as cattle feed, and also mushroom growing. Top right: one of those laden vans I mentioned earlier. Bottom left: very happy pigs. Bottom right: the pigs’ number, should anybody ever need to call them.
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The one with exploding pirates
The one with ghosts
The one with the evil carp
Just had a very enjoyable pre-work (work delaying strategy) breakfast reading your blog, thanks! I’d love to hear more about the story of the war construction at Banteay Prey Nokor next time you feel the urge to put hands to keyboard 🙂
Sorry *wat not war…
Yes, do tell us the full story 🙂
Well, when I first looked at the story, it briefly detailed the man who built the temple as somebody who accidently killed his father, and then accidentally married his mother, and when he realised this he built the wat as penance for his crimes.
But a more common version leaves out the ‘killing his father’ part, which sort of removes murder from the story (sorry). In saying that, a fish gets murdered, and there’s still incest, so we can all be happy about those things.
It’s a story that can drag out, but we’ve got a bus to catch in two hours and haven’t packed yet, so I’ll be brief, and write it in list form.
Baby is born in Cambodia.
Father puts baby under tree for shade.
Birds shit on baby.
Father washes baby in river.
Fish manages to eat baby.
Father dies of grief.
Fish swims to China.
Chinese fisherman catches fish, murders fish, and finds baby alive inside belly.
Baby is raised by emperor.
Baby is now man.
Man takes ship and thousands of soldiers to search for true parents.
Man finds Kampong Cham.
Man finds woman, they marry.
After two years woman notices birthmark on man’s head, which matches her long lost son’s.
Woman realises she is not only cougar, but also mother of man.
Both feel a little icky.
Woman makes man build her a temple by way of apology, and forces him to become monk.
The end.
Haha, made me laugh! You guys are great 🙂 Awesome story
Thanks! Now you can tell it at parties.
Mmmm…. looks like Bahn Mi in Vietnam… wait till you get there, lots of bread rolls like that (I used to eat 2, but I was on the bike so needed the extra energy, so I used to tell myself!)
Going to Angkor Watt? Although its a huge tourist monstrosity, it is also completely awesome. And if you head north and through to Preah Vihear – that is an awesome temple, the last remnants of the Khmer Rouge used it as their base. Bullet holes and gun emplacements with full on army on the border of Thailand (its disputed who owns it, but clearly it should be Cambodia!).
Watch out for land mine crews working too (don’t venture too far into the bush without paths, you literally could get blown up!).
Hi Brett, nice to see you here! As you may know by now, since the post I just posted, no, we didn’t go to Angkor Wat. And not because we didn’t want to, or because we weren’t in Siem Reap, but because I got a bad flu. Boo.
We also didn’t make it Preah Vihear Temple, even though we stayed in Krong Preah Vihear. Happily, there is always next time.