Starting with the return journey to the ferry terminal, itself beginning with a haul up the rocky path that almost finished us off on our way to Sunset Beach. It was actually less challenging going up than down – none of the juddering impacts of the over-high ‘steps’ – but only till we noticed the mossies, clustering around every inch of exposed flesh, and closing in for the kill. Fortunately Virle had packed the repellent accessibly, and in a flurry of shrieks and thrashing we managed to arm ourselves against the foe, tho’ not before they had extracted their pound of flesh and a pint or two of blood. Little bastids! We won’t be sorry to see the last-ish of them. They were an absolute curse on the island, and never more so than this morning,
Another 45 minutes or so saw us back to the beach, and the jetty, which Virle set off along with what I recognised as her ‘$&^% this, I’m out of here’ stride.
Then a brief wait on the jetty with a few fellow deserters, and off we went, scudding across the waves…
An hour or so later and we docked at Sihanoukville,which somehow looked even worse than it did the last time we were here, and fending off tuk tuk drivers left and right, we set off on the 25 minute or so walk along a really grim highway toward the railway station. Though we did have a rest after five minutes at a little roadside stall where I had an iced coffee and Virle had what we’d thought was going to be tea but turned out to be orange: “And very nice it is.”
After 20 minutes or so a woman on a scooter pulled over and asked us where we were headed. When we said the railway station she said we should leave the main highway and go down here, then right, then keep walking until we saw the railway station on our left. Which we did, passing en route through some truly scrappy shops and along a broken, bepuddled road before arriving at a large building so shabby we couldn’t at first believe it was the railway station of what is when all’s said and done quite a major city. But so it was.
Nothing in it – not even a shop or kiosk – but a single track over there, and some rows of seating over here. Which is where we spent the next two hours, just watching the world go by and, at one point, buying some lunch from a woman who, in the company of what appeared to be her entire family, was grilling pork skewers on a low brazier and putting the results into baguettes, along with some kind of pickles and unidentified sauce. And very tasty they were too.
(The one top left I call Yes, no, yes, no, babe babe babe.) Eventually the train arrived, was cleaned, and we were welcomed on board, and set off through the outskirts of Sihanoukville – corrugated iron shacks interspersed with vast constructions on the shore, with what looked like Korean signage: power stations, massive oil and gas storage facilities, others unidentifiable but towering over their shabby neighbours. It was all quite surreal, the more so as the train kept up a blaring salute for 20, 30, 40 seconds at a trot, mile after mile after mile. Still, as I said to V, it’s actually quite sweet to be in a place where children wave cheerily at a passing train.
And so to Kampot, where we find ourselves in a very nice little bungalowtel right on the river shore, where we just had dinner: Khmer curry and Fish Amok, which we’d never had, though when we looked it up it proves to be a bit of an iconic national dish. Both, way beyond our expectations, for such a modest place, absolutely delicious. And a welcome change, after the ok but basically pretty bland food we’ve been mostly treated to in our island paradise.
Tomorrow we start to find out what Kampot has to offer. Something good, hopefully, since we have three days here. But either way, it’s nice to be here, surrounded by partying Cambodian families, under a full moon, with the river twinkling away and the occasional big boat gliding by in the dark, ablaze with colourful lights.