Kampot to Phnom Penh, Cambodia

My tour in Kampot started at 9.  It was only me and 21 year old Ben from Bristol.  He was so refreshing - everything we saw made him so excited!  I had a really good day with him and thank goodness because our “tour leader” is really a tuk tuk driver who couldn’t answer most of our questions, nor did he have a good grasp of English.  To make things worse, I paid $36 for the tour, the most expensive one yet!  I will be leaving a review for sure!

Our first stop was at the salt flats-

The Gulf of Thailand is very close so that’s where the salt water comes from.  They can’t salt harvest during the rainy season because there is no salt in rainwater so their season is quite short and if it rains when it shouldn’t, that doesn’t help. They rake the flats to bring in the salt, then use baskets-

to haul it-

to a nearby storage facility-

A kilogram of salt-

The crystals are quite large-

We hopped in the tuk tuk and drove out into the countryside where the gardens are beautiful –

The view is pretty nice too-

We walked up to a cave-

with a temple built in the 9th century, before anything at Angkor Wat-

It smelled of bat shit because there were many on the ceiling.  There are also different “animals” in the stone if you have a good imagination-

We carried on.  Durian, the stinky fruit-

During Pol Pot’s regime, many reservoirs were hand dug to save water during the rainy season-

Canals connect it to the fields-

We stopped for a drink-

Our final stop was at La Plantation Pepper Farm which is why I came to Kampot in the first place.  It was started in 2013 by a couple from France and Belgium. Foreigners cannot own land so they have Cambodian partners. They employ 150 locals and provide them with meals, health insurance as well as lodging. They support students in schools and give full ride scholarships for university.  They offer English classes on Saturdays and Apsara dancing classes.

They have a total of 50 hectares planted with 20 hectares for pepper vines and 30 hectares for long pepper vines and spices, 100% organic.

There are 604 pepper poles 4 metres high and 2 meters apart.  There is a sunscreen above to protect the plants from the wind and burning from the sun-

The vines were started in 2013.  It takes one to two years for the plants to get this tall then for the first three years after planting, they only flower.  After this they start producing pepper corns.  For 4 to 5 months they produce green pepper corns and after 8 months red corns.  Harvesting is done by hand.  

Pepper originally came from India in the 13th century and has been grown here since.  Kampot pepper is like champagne in France.  There are only two provinces in the area where producers can actually call their pepper “Kampot”.  It is supposedly the best in the world and is accredited.

The fields were abandoned in 1970 when the Khmer Rouge came to power as all agriculture was stopped.  They were started up again in 2000.  

There are lots of green pepper corns-

and the very odd red pepper corn and at the moment they have none for sale-

Long pepper plants-

and the beginning of a long pepper-

which grow about 4”.  

Products available in their store include white pepper –

To make white pepper, red pepper corns are soaked overnight to remove the outside husk and then sun-dried for two days.

Black pepper harvest begins in February when ripe pepper clusters with dark green corns are picked by hand, cleaned and sun-dried for 2 to 3 days –

They also have a smoker and burn dry coconut skin and rice skin–

Various spices are also available –

After the outside tour, we had a tasting. We were given a paper explaining each product we would try, its flavours and a place to check if we liked it or not –

Our guide-

Pepper on a sample plate-

Various samples-

Red pepper is the mildest, then white and black is the strongest.

I bought some black pepper, kaffir lime spice and galangal spice so I can make Tom Yum Goong-

We returned to Kampot via the lake/reservoir-

I picked up my backpack from my hotel and went to the bus station.  At 3:30 I was in a van on my way to Phnom Phen.  Our driver was a maniac but got us there safely and very quickly. 

 

Phnom Penh - what a crazy city!  I took a Grab tuk tuk which is half the price of a car and travels just as fast. I really like the way traffic moves. There are few traffic lights and everybody is very polite and respectful and lets people turn in front of them rather than hold up traffic.  No one seems impatient and it flows very well-

The Daun Penh Palace Hotel-

is in the heart of the city.  It is not on a main street but down a little alley where people live in the back of their small shops next to a hotel next to a bar next to an open bbq restaurant next to another small shop/home and on and on.  

I can’t remember why I picked this hotel because it is $86 US for three nights, the most I have paid this trip however it is very nice– 

and very orange-

There is a pool on the roof –

with a great view-

I found a close smash burger joint-

which was very good but I really don’t get the smashed part, and visited with a man, probably in his 30s, from Calgary.  He was an asshole.  When I told him where I was from he sort of rolled his eyes and made a derogatory comment inferring hillbilly or backwater but then as we continued to visit, he brought up more than once that there is no sense of community in Calgary.  I thought that’s what you deserve jerk because there is no better sense of community than in a smaller centre.  He seemed sort of sad but too arrogant or ignorant to even consider that idea.  Some people!

Tomorrow is a day off so I will wander, see a few things and then maybe spend the heat of the day in the pool! 

I was able to brush my teeth with my right arm – the first time in four weeks! Not four weeks since I brushed my teeth but…