Wat Nokor
Kompong Cham is about half way between Kratie and Phnom Penh but still 4 hours away. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine when you’re at home how long all the different places take to get to but I’m glad I decided to break the journey cause not only was I living to regret the pizza it seems I’m also living to regret the noodles.......enough said huh?! ;-)
My travelling companion on the bus was a retired German guy who was very friendly and chatty but actually I think perhaps a little too friendly and there was certainly a bit of a personal space issue going on at times! :-0
Kompong Cham is similar to Kratie, very busy with not masses there to see, although it does seem to be a little bit cleaner!
I found a room for the night and after a very hot night last night with an ineffective fan I promised myself air-con tonight and found one in a very large hotel with a balcony and a view of the Mekong River for under £10. :-)
So now I’m in Cambodia and my Laos sim card isn’t working and with no other phone I wanted to see if it was true that it was illegal for foreigners to buy a sim card here. The hotel receptionist called over a tuk tuk driver who might be able to help but he said it is still illegal and that he would have to buy it for me with his ID card and that of course wasn’t ideal so in the end I decided to opt out of that particularly illegal goings on!
So for my time in Kompong Cham I had this plan to cycle to a nearby bamboo bridge and over to a small island in the middle of the Mekong but it’s so hot today and I was beginning to like the sound of a ride in a tuk tuk. So after negotiating the price with the driver I headed off for a bite to eat before we set out. While I was having a sandwich he called the bar to speak to me to say he couldn’t do it now as he had something to do at home!!!! Huh?? He said he would try to call a friend of his to see if he could take me but no joy there either!! Am I missing something here? I thought they wanted the business!
Then someone in the bar said there was a big rich tour group in and of course, that made total sense, they could get more money off of them than they could get off of me. Eventually the waitress where I had lunch called a couple of people and arranged a trip for me at 3pm.
Sights in the local area include Man and Woman mountains, an ancient wat and a local village so we did all of the above and my driver actually was a really good guide and very informative on life in Cambodia our final stop was the bamboo bridge which is made new from scratch every year in the dry season when the river is relatively low and bridges the river from the mainland to the small island of Koh Paen. The area is really really busy and even my tuk tuk driver isn’t really sure what’s going on, it’s some kind of party.
Man mountain - a very hot climb!
This evening I headed back to one of the two bars in town for dinner. So far it seems that you can’t really eat street food here, although to date it does tend to taste a lot better.
A local village and some of the villagers
The bamboo bridge in Kompong Cham
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