Day 24 - Spooky ass weird mountain

16:30
What a sensational day! I awake to the exit poll prediction telling me that the Labour Party have won the General Election back home, and will have a huge majority. The Tories aren’t going to be quite as down and out as I’d have perhaps liked, but they’ve been humiliated. I sit down with a coffee to watch more of the results come in. I cheer out loud when Shapps goes. I laugh to myself when Mordaunt loses. I do a little dance when Fabricant is toast. It’s honestly a brilliant way to start the day. As I go to leave my room to head out with Felix, Rees-Mogg is dethroned. YESSSSSSS!

Head out we do, aiming for Kep Sur Mer, and the famous seafood market there. Exiting the car, we’re met by a wall of heat. It’s the first properly sunny day we’ve had for a few days, and it’s so hot it’s prickling to my skin. Walking through the market is a trip. There are amazing displays of raw, and in some cases, live food. None of it is refrigerated. It doesn’t smell bad though, which indicates to me that it is incredibly fresh. There are stalls selling skewers of many different types of fish - squid, Kingfish, tiny crabs, seabass, and a bunch we don’t recognise. There are countless live crabs, for which the market is most famous. Deeper into the market, there are spice shops, selling ground and whole spices, along with bags of Kampot Pepper. Felix guesses (and he’s probably right) that these will cost a fraction of what we paid at the plantation yesterday. Felix buys a small octopus on a stick. It’s delicious. We stop for a cold drink by the water’s edge, where a wonderfully cooling breeze whips off the ocean. Neither of us is particularly hungry after our protein fest last night, so we jump back in the car without lunch.

Our next stop is Bokor mountain, the other side of Kampot. We’re still in the sunshine on the 75 minute drive over that way, but there are some grey clouds gathering around the mountain-top. As we turn off the main road, and into the National Park, there are monkeys everywhere. Some scatter from the road when our drivers leans on the horn, whilst others proverbially flip the bird. The drive to the summit is beautiful - the views down to the sea are breathtaking. We drive through some low lying cloud, and pause for breath at a massive white Buddha statue.

We head on to a pitstop at a huge edifice of a hotel right in the middle of the National Park. It is deserted. It reminds us of the hotel in The Shining. Restaurant, empty. Kids’ play area, empty. Lobby, empty. There’s a café/bar in the reception area, so we grab a quick drink and use the bathroom. We head further up the mountain, past a very weird row of terraced houses that remind me of some of the crescent streets in Brighton. They are empty, and verging on dilapidated. Across the road from them is a part built warehouse. It’s utterly surreal. The weirdness is not helped by the continuing thickening of the cloud around us. The sensation of being in low cloud is quite different to fog, that’s more familiar to us. Firstly, it moves very differently - and you can sense it moving. Sometimes, you’ll very clearly see it moving. Secondly, once you’re in the thick of it, there is no visibility. I don’t mean visibility is limited - I mean there is NO visibility. The temple we’re headed for is shrouded in cloud when we arrive, but it’s shifting and changing around us. We head to the very top of the mountain, which has (on a clear day) the most incredible steep view down in the valley below. With the cloud where it is, we briefly see the valley floor, before it disappears from view again. It plays with the mind in an ultra cool way…

22:30
For our last dinner in Kampot, we head to a place run by one of the pepper farms not far from the city. I have a delightful cocktail featuring red pepper (as well as some gin). My starter of squid ink dumplings in a herby broth is stellar. It’s a kind of ravioli / Chinese dim-sum hybrid, and bloody lovely. Felix orders some Foie Gras, only to be told they’re out. He sulkily makes do with a delicious salmon and avocado tartare. My main is a duck breast, simply pan roasted with a Holy Basil and chilli dressing. Banging. Felix has his first Amok of our Cambodia stay, and we both agree it’s up there with the best. Properly tasty food.

While we’re eating we reminisce and reflect on our time in Cambodia. Both of us have loved it, and would return. I have a sense it’s a country about to undergo extensive and rapid change. Maybe in 5 years time, maybe in 10 - but I suspect it’s going to look and feel very different in the not too distance future. Felix has been very taken with island life, and I’m quick to remind him that the peace and quiet of Koh Rong Sanloem isn’t necessarily guaranteed elsewhere. The closest equivalent I can draw in Thailand is Koh Tao, but even there, the pace of life was higher, the hustle/bustle were more prevalent. I’m sure there are islands both in the Gulf of Thailand and in the Andaman Sea that more closely align to his recent experience, but he’d have to seek them out.

We’re not quite ready to call it a night, so stop at a bar called Rusty Keyhole, which we both agree sounds like a sex act for which you’d have to pay very top dollar. We play some ludicrously bad pool. I chat briefly to the Scottish guy behind the bar, and we compare stories of watching Tories losing earlier today.

It’s been a really fucking good day.Leggi altro