Kampot day 2

I enjoyed my walking tour with Jason so much yesterday, I decided to do his countryside cycling tour today. We met at 9, was just me and a lovely Aussie lady called Bec.
Within 10 mins of cycling we were out of the city and on to dirt roads, driving past gorgeous green countryside.
Our first stop was a traditional monnestry. Jason got us coffees at a small stall and gave us a little tour around. He's like a book, you could ask him any question and he had the answer to it.
Monks don't own any money, meaning they can't buy food and rely on the local community to cook and provide food for them. We'd got there just as they were preparing for their single meal of the day. Contrary to popular belief, most monks that live communal Monasteries aren't vegetarian as they eat whatever's cooked for them, which most of the time will include meat as it's the cheapest protein.
This particular monnestry was used as a hospital during the Khmer Rouge regime. Most university trained doctors were killed, so soldiers were given 4 months training to become a medic, which resulted in even more deaths because of poor practice. They often used coconuts to given IV drips, which actually do have the correct salt balance for them to work, however poor sanitisation meant it didn't work most of the time.
We moved on and cycled through a small fishing village, home to a group of Ethnic Cham people, who are a Muslim minority group making up 1-2% of the countries population. They speak their own language and have their own culture, so often aren't very well integrated into the rest of society.
We stopped at another monastery, this time further into the countryside, which usually means they also practice aspects of animism. We learned lots more about the spirits, and also forest monks who are monks that live in the forest and live off the land eating vegan. There's not a word for vegetarian or vegan in Khmer, so I was told if I want to ask for veggie food, to ask for forest monk food!
We were sat on a table listening to Jason's stories when a monk sat outside one of the temples beckoned us over. He sat us down, poured us tea, offered us cigarettes and coffee sachets before disappearing off and re-emerging with red braided string and tied bracelets onto our wrists, which are a Buddhist monk blessing. Jason speaks a bit of Khmer so he and the monk were having a conversation whilst me and Bec sat drinking our tea. He showed us inside, and then asked for a photo and friended Jason on Facebook 😅
After that lovely interaction, we stopped in a house just outside the monastery. There we were cooked up a delicious vegan lunch made by one of Jason's Cambodian friend Vin.
We then continued cycling around, stopping off outside houses or shrines for a little history fact or two. All the houses out here are made of wood on stilts, to prevent flooding during the rainy season. A lot of the houses are very old, and you could tell what animals the family used to keep depending on the height. Houses quite low to the ground were generally for poorer families who kept chickens and ducks, higher ones would have had kept buffalos or cows then the super tall houses kept elephants! Most of the houses are still used by farmers, but of course no elephants about.
We then stopped for another drink, at a house that makes palm sugar, and a final monnestry which had kids sprinting in and out of doors playing tag.
Jason then talked to us about what he knew about the Khmer Rouge from speaking to locals. Kampot in particular was highly fought over as it's Cambodia's only coastal city and therefore only trading port. There's two long mountain ranges across Cambodia meaning Kampot can only really be accessed by one main road from Phnom Penh, which up until recently was patrolled by bandits and prior to that, Khmer Rouge soldiers.
Jason was also saying that many Cambodian people don't like talking about the genocide, not only because it's traumatic but also as they find it shameful. After the Khmer empire fell in 1431, for the next hundreds of years Thailand and Vietnam were constantly in dispute trying to invade or takeover Cambodia. They viewed Cambodia as uncivilised, savages and unable to govern themselves. During the Khmer Rouge regime some of those aspects became a little truthful, so they feel embarrassed that Cambodian people turned on eachother and commited such atrocities. The killing fields and genocide museum in Phnom Penh were curated by westerner's as well as many other genocide 'exhibits', while most Cambodian people would rather forget about the genocide altogether.
It was a really interesting view point that I had not heard or thought of before.
We cycled back into town and dropped our bikes at 3. I absolutely loved the tour and wish I could remember more of the history, stories and facts Jason told us, as we were given so much.
Me and Bec then walked along the river for about 40 minutes along to dog Sanctuary called high tide, right on the river. They look after over 100 dogs, and had a bar/cafe area looking over the water with every kind of dog imaginable running around. My idea of heaven!
It's against Buddhist beliefs to neuter animals, so there's so many street dogs and cats here.
Bec left after an hour but I stayed and sat with the dogs.
I was planning to leave, when a group of dogs followed me into the courtyard on my way out so I sat and cuddled them for another half hour before getting a tuk tuk into town to grab some dinner.Les mer