Phumĭ Pôpôk Vĭl

Bokor National Park

I'm writing this a couple days late and because I suck at remembering I'm sure I'm gonna forget alot.

I woke up nice and early to the sun beaming down on me in my hammock. It was a surprisingly good sleep especially as I was so close to the guy next to me. I spent a while just chilling while everyone (dogs included) started to wake up and met Joe - the owner - I let him know that I wanted to swim with the dogs and he said let him get sorted and he would get the right dogs in the water with me. Eventually I didn't wanna annoy him any more so I just jumped in the water and went for a swim solo whilst some dogs watched me from the shore.

Someone I had met offered to give me a ride into town on his bike so I didn't have to call a tuktuk. We rode in and met with someone else who had just returned their bike and went to find some breakfast together. We ended up going to this slightly expensive Mexican place where I got a breakfast burrito and a mango juice (was meant to be a shake but I messed up). This breakfast burrito was unreal- so many flavours I hadn't had in so long like salda and CHEESE. My first bit of cheese in so long and it was as beautiful as I had ever remembered.

I then rented a scooter - giving my passport as the deposit for the first time ever while was a little scary- and headed towards the mountains. There was no phone holder so getting the mountain road was a little bit of a task but once I was on it, it was smooth sailing. The road was a nice one to ride on, with good turns and sights along the way. I got to a point where a monkey was chillin on the side of the road so the people infront decided to stop infront of me, making me have to quickly swerve out of the way. Luckily all was good.

The first stop was a giant Buddha statue which had an entrance round the back with a ladder going up. I went up a little bit and sensing that I had overstepped, went back down and kept going along the roads. The next set of buildings were basically all abandoned from the times of the French colonies. The first was an old church, which was pretty basic but the view from the cliff behind it was quite relaxing - though to be honest it was super cloudy and I couldn't see much.

I went on and walked around some more abandoned buildings - which to be honest was a bit creepy and eerie. I also climbed up the ladder of this concrete tower before getting sketched out and heading back down. I could have now turned around the way I came but I wanted some adventure. After some unsuccessful and dodgy off roading I decided to head down a different road to see where it would take me. With almost no GPS signal I headed down and found a place called 500 rice field which had no rice and just lots of small stone towers in a field. Very odd. I kept going and definitely ended up getting lost. With the option of turning back always available I kept going, passing a construction site before asking a passer by how to get to Kampot. He pointed in the direction I had already assumed and I went on my way.

I stopped at a store to grab some snacks and then headed back to the hostel. When I arrive I decide to chill with the dogs (obviously) before meeting some other people and we decide to head into town for some food. We go to a recommended place and I order some ginger, garlic and onion chicken noodles which was divine, I absolutely adore the taste of ginger and garlic. We head back and just chill with the dogs until it was time to go to sleep. I had also found out that the guy who gave me a lift into town earlier caused a 5 scooter crash later that day where luckily no one was hurt but alot of scooters were damaged. I'm gonna be a bit more careful who I get on the back of for sure.Les mer