The R&R Big Adventure

Slow train to Kampot

When I sent my last update I was on a 5hr bus journey from Battambang to Phnom Penh. I didn’t mention it as I thought with my ability to tempt fate we would end up pushing the bus the last three miles. Thankfully the journey was punctual, and the bus wasn’t that full. We were just in Phnom Penh overnight, with another bus to get the next morning. When we arrived in the city around 2pm we thought we would best use the afternoon to get our bearings, and save the longer sightseeing for when we return at the end of our stay in Cambodia. We were staying in a boutique hotel that was once the official residence of the U.S. Ambassador – hence its name The White Mansion. We had a very nice, but ridiculously large, room you could swing three cats in. It was interesting to see some of the original features of the former residence.

Walking round the streets of Phnom Penh we immediately noticed the contrast between city and rural life. We were expecting something similar to Hanoi, but there were more skyscrapers and smart restaurants, and we passed a gym that looked like it wouldn’t be out of place in Mayfair. I saw more Mercedes-Maybachs (c. £200K a pop) and Range Rovers in one day than you would in months in central London. There didn’t seem to be much of a trickle-down effect of wealth from the city here.

Having seen several of the famous monuments in the city, we got back to the hotel and decided we wanted a break from Asian food for dinner, and found a good French restaurant nearby. The area seemed to be popular with ex-pats, with one old Brit droning on endlessly at his (young, female) Cambodian dining companion at a table near us.

Friday morning we were up early again for our next bus to Sihanoukville, a port on the south coast of Cambodia, where we would be catching a boat to one of the islands off the mainland. This time we weren’t so lucky – the bus was an hour later, and full (it seemed) of bewildered older tourists (we had to stop as two of them had forgotten to take their bags off their pick up bus). Those two were part of a group of four real East End types. One was tattooed head to toe, and looked like you definitely wouldn’t have wanted to mess with him thirty years ago. I wondered whether Cambodia had an extradition agreement with the UK – or not (it doesn’t).

We fortunately had a couple of hours before we got the boat and so we made the connection and arrived at Koh Rong Saloem island late afternoon. We were going to have a brief beach interlude for a couple of nights before continuing our travels, and the small resort didn’t disappoint. Not many rooms, powder white beach, and a lovely sea view west towards the sunset.

Saturday morning we were up early and wanted to take advantage of being able to walk in the interior of this island, which we couldn’t do on Malolo Island in Fiji. Rather than pay for a guide, who would slow us down anyway, we used R’s Strava (running) app to look at the heat maps of trails people had been on to plot our journey. Once we left the resort we soon saw piles of rubbish in the forest – such a shame to see discarded old fridges, polystyrene containers, and loads of old plastic piled up everywhere. We saw this in Fiji as well – such a shame that people don’t look after their own environment, especially those on otherwise idyllic islands. One of the resorts on the other side of the island had fallen into disrepair and it felt slightly apocalyptic walking along the beach seeing abandoned beach huts and broken boardwalks. R thought we could get back to a main path by cutting through some undergrowth. It wasn’t far on the map, so thought we would give it a go. What seemed like a clearing soon disappeared, and we were battling to get through overgrown creepers and shrubs. Where was a machete when you need one. It was then we felt stinging on our legs, and looking down, saw large red ants were crawling over them (and biting at the same time). Fortunately they weren’t the smaller red ants which apparently really sting. That was it – back to the main path and start again. Working back on ourselves we picked up the main path and crossed over to the main part of the island, Saracen Bay. From a vantage point on a hill, before we got to the bay, we could large areas of the forest had been cleared – possibly for development that halted during COVID, but which had left large ugly scars on the landscape. At Saracen Bay we saw some cheap backpacker places (if someone were to boast of finding somewhere to sleep here for just $10 a night, believe me, they really do look like $10 places). After lunch on the water’s edge it was back to our resort – by small and fast speedboat – and to enjoy a lazy afternoon on the beach.

The day finished with another spectacular sunset, where we saw a Buddhist monk, in full garb, staying at the hotel. He was at breakfast the next morning, so it can’t have been a flying visit. He probably needed a break after the stress of collecting so many donations from the local people. The hotel laid on a short ‘fire show’ during dinner, which consisted of one of the gardeners we had said ‘hello’ to that morning, plus a mate, spinning flaming batons. I imagined how his interview at the hotel went: “So aside from your palm tree pruning experience, how are your baton twirling skills? Batons that may or may not be alight?” After the fire show there was an opportunity to light some traditional lanterns that are let off to float into the sky. After seeing all the rubbish in the forest that morning, we didn’t want to partake.

This morning we grabbed a couple of hours of sun, and R also tried his hand at paddle boarding in the shallow waters of our beach, and did very well, managing to maintain his balance. It was a shame we had to leave the resort today. Our transfer back to Sihanoukville was more timely today. We had plenty of time to get some lunch at Sihanoukville Station, before our train to Kampot at 2pm. Unfortunately there was absolutely nothing around the station, which doubled up as a freight depot. Sihanoukville is a terminus for the Phnom Penh – Kampot – Sihanoukville train service, the only train line now running in Cambodia. The whole journey takes 7 hours, far longer than the bus, but we wanted to experience the leg to Kampot which was a more manageable 2 hrs. The underinvestment in Cambodia’s infrastructure was clear to see – aside from the station being little more than a concrete box, with a ticket window and nothing else, the train departed late, after it took several men nearly an hour to inspect and reinspect the wheels. So now we are trundling (I think top speed is 30km/h) through the countryside to Kampot. The train carriage (we pushed the boat out and spent another $10 on First Class) is old Japanese rolling stock, and remarkably high tech. With the flick of a manual lever, each pair of seats can rotate 180deg to face the right direction of travel. The country is very rural, with views of acre after acre of fields on both sides. Hopefully Japanese engineering will keep us going all the way to Kampot with no further delays.