The R&R Big Adventure

Peppers, crabs and mangroves

No sooner had I posted my last blog than the train pulled into Kampot station. When planning this trip I’ve tried to book hotels which are independent and/or have some character to them wherever possible. Kampot’s was no exception: we were staying in a converted 1930’s Art Deco cinema which a Dutch/French husband and wife team had lovingly restored over four years after they bought it in 2016. Aside from some great detailing which had all been recreated, we were most impressed by the wife, Pauline, who greeted us at check-in and clearly knew how to run a hotel. After ten minutes with her explaining what to see and do in Kampot, and what potential tuk tuk tour to do the next day, we felt very relaxed as we sipped sundowners later that evening by the river (two for one Pimms, for $4.50).

Having decided to take her up on the offer of sorting a driver for us at breakfast, she promptly arranged it, and half an hour later he was waiting for us in reception. First stop was ‘La Plantation’ – as the name would suggest, a (pepper) plantation half an hour from town. Kampot was famous for its peppers before the civil war, and exported much of its crop to French restaurants. The Khmer Rouge had other ideas, and killed the pepper farm owners, and replaced the crops with rice fields. With the downfall of the Khmer Rouge, pepper farming slowly returned, and in 2011 another husband and wife couple (this time French and Belgium) bought the land and started growing peppers and fruits. Today the place felt very much like a small winery – a professional operation with acres of pepper vines, visitor centre, and bar/café overlooking the beautiful landscape. Our tour guide first explained the work the company was putting back into the community – sponsoring a local school and students, and holding English classes in the grounds. French students were sponsored for six months to work here as guides – there were a lot of French visitors – which would be an ideal job if the students then wanted to go travelling for the next six months. Whilst we have been to many vineyards over the years, we haven’t seen pepper farms, so it was interesting to learn how they harvested the peppers (women do this – smaller hands, and more patient than men!), the different pepper varieties, seeing the sorting, drying and packaging operations, before finally doing some tasting of the different peppers, and spices, they sold. The ‘powdering room’ was especially fragrant with all the different spice and pepper smells. Of course we couldn’t leave without a purchase – hopefully these ones won’t end up at the back of the kitchen cupboard.

It was time for lunch, so we asked our driver to take us straight to Kep, a town further down the coast which is famous for its crab market. As we approached the seaside town (where Cambodians would come to holiday) we saw many open-sided covered platforms (like a permanent gazebo), each containing a couple of hammocks, lining the seafront. These were empty on a weekday, but I could imagine granny and grandad in the hammocks, whilst mum is cooking a barbecue of fish and rice for the family. We had been recommended a restaurant on the waterfront – Holy Crab – which served the most amazing (and beautifully presented) crab in sauce, for a fraction of what it would cost in London. We also had the option to eat in the crab market itself which we visited after lunch. There were stall after stall of fresh crabs, oysters, langoustines, and other shellfish of all description. Some of them were pre-cooked on grills, that could be bought and eaten in the market. We agreed we preferred our restaurant with a view, comfortable surroundings, and the bottle of French rosé that accompanied our crab dishes.

We wanted to go to a mangrove forest next, and our tuk tuk driver suggested we go on a boat to see it up close. He drove us to (another) dilapidated boardwalk, where, after some discussion between him and the local boat owners ,we boarded a just-about-river-going boat to take us into the mangrove. After about fifteen minutes he pulled up at another wobbly/rotten boardwalk where we could walk amongst the mangroves, before picking the boat up again for a leisurely cruise back through the forest.

It was a lovely relaxing day and ended with a return visit to the first floor bar we had found the previous day for some more sundowner Pimms. Watching the world go by I noted again how sometimes mum, dad and two small children were crammed onto one motorbike, as we had seen throughout Cambodia:  a world apart from the limousines we had seen clogging the streets in Phnom Penh.

We decided to eat in the hotel restaurant for dinner, and we were again treated to another delicious meal that day. We were the only diners, but the food was amazing there too. A western/Asian mix of tapas, all very fresh and flavoursome. This was a great little hotel. We got chatting to the expat barman who had arrived from Bristol several years ago and stayed, aside from a stint in the UK during COVID. He told us how the town had shot up in the last ten years after Chinese investment in Sihanoukville had forced up rents and pushed people out along the coast. Unfortunately the influx of single, older Western men had also brought with it ‘lady bars’ and massage parlours.

We enjoyed our brief visit here, but this morning it was time to move on, and we are now well on our way back to Phnom Penhm, where we will spend our last couple of days in Cambodia.