The 24th of November has to rank as one of the more amusing days that we spent in Cambodia.
Let me tell you why;
Our breakfast was late arriving, because we woke up late, and then we decided that rather than skip breakfast we’d chance it and order muesli, which should come quickly – yes? – but it didn’t and when it came it had, despite it’s obviously enticing outward appearance of fruit and yoghurt, it had, as we should have suspected, a hell of a lot of ants in it. And then we left nearly half an hour late for our day trip because we were waiting around for breakfast.
Another reason;
Our visit to the salt farm, where important white crystalline substances are harvested, took up about 10 minutes. Basically, we got off the bus, the guy pointed at the salt fields and said ‘these are the salt fields, and that over there is the bus, now get back on it’.
The kids looked all disappointed after we didn’t give them any money for following us around during our tour of the limestone cave in one of the nearby hills which had a small altar in it that was several hundred years old. And we saw a monkey trained to sit on top of a pole.
As for the altar itself, it was only about two metres high and two metres wide, and most of the space inside was taken up with the statue that formed the altar. The door was something under 1.5 metres high, and about half a metre wide. And it was pretty dark inside the cave. So you can imagine how dark it would be inside the altar.
A fourth reason;
After the morning’s salt field we went through a little bit of a rain storm to a pepper farm; out the back of which a man stood proudly in front of two large barrels of rice alcohol, rumoured to be somewhere in the range of 80%. Tasted like 80%, and burned like 80% as well. Pepper actually grows on thin green trees, which are tethered in long rows like wine, in the thick clay soil, muddy after the rain.
A fifth reason;
Lunch, a filling and delicious vegetable amok, was eaten in open-sided huts by the beach, swaying in hammocks, and afterwards we spent a good deal of time lazing about in the sun-warm water, watching the shoals of tiny little fish buzzing past us, some of which were jumping out of the water in groups at any time they felt appropriate, while some pasty flabby european lady made an attempt to do Butterfly stroke which would have attracted lifeguards had there been any present. after which we retired back into the shady huts for cold carbonated beverages of the type which every growing boy enjoys.
A sixth reason;
After a much longer bus trip, the long flat boat which came to get us at the edge of the Kampot river spat out so much diesel smoke and exhaust powder into the river that I was surprised the boat could move with our whole group on it.
A seventh reason (yes seven!);
We stopped for a swim half way along the boat cruise, and practiced the fine oriental art of jumping off the side of the boat, or, in some cases, off the side of the top level of the boat, hopefully without destabilising the boat too much, seeing as it already had a quite a degree of yaw rotation happening, even in the calm water of the river.
An eight reason;
A couple of times we actually thought the boat was going to tip right over, and it would have been funny if it did, but only long after the fact, after the nice insurance people decided to buy us a new D200.
A ninth reason (three times as good as the third one);
Just as we were reaching our destination back in Kampot, some absolutely enormous clouds came over, and it got very dark very fast, and the people on the mezzanine level of the boat had to come rushing down the ladder, and then we skipped off the boat onto wet land, and scrambled up the hill and across the road into the closest bar, which was a decadent two-story open air deal, kind of palatial or, you might say, like what you would imagine Flavio Briatore’s house would be like – only with no supermodels laying about the place being absolutely useless and looking great doing it – this bar turned out to be a cocktail bar of the expensive variety, but it was just as good a time for hot chocolate as any. And lo, there was hot chocolate, and the people looked upon the hot chocolate they had ordered, and it was good.
And that’s all the reasons, but they’re pretty good reasons, aren’t they?
No wait – there were more!
Dinner was projected to be late arriving but I ordered the Khmer style vegetable noodles and Alice really really wanted pizza so pizza she had. Only it took about 45 minutes, and the Khmer noodles came about 10 minutes after we ordered. So I was long finished by the time her dinner came.
And finally – certain members of the group, having stayed on at the cocktail bar near the river – arrived back at the hotel looking and acting like they had maybe one lemonade too many.
Greg
