I guess I am getting luckier by the day travelling to new places and finding new adventures. After the fishing trip the week was a bit tough with work and we were planning to take a four wheel drive to the jungles, Gladston was pretty busy and actually he is the one who arranges most of the trips, so he had asked me to find out if I could get something interesting, and there wasn’t much of a four wheel drive from Phnom Penh and Kampot was finalized. We took the tickets on Friday, but no one actually googled to check whats there, I had a brief talk with Milan and he said there are mainly two places, the island and the hill, given the amount of time we had we could do only one of the two, so we thought we would hire a dirt bike to the top of the hill.
When we reached Kampot we were too unsure of what we needed to do, I think it happens to everyone most of the times, so we decided to find out what we actually can, but the first thing was to take the return ticket to Phnom Penh and we took em. We moved around in circles for almost an hour but couldn’t find anything, so I called up Willy to ask whats there and he told me either Rabbit Island or the Bokor hills, when inquired about the Bokor hills the tour starts only in the morning and lasts till the evening, Gladston was keen on doing it and I always was ready for something new. The Bokor Hills consisted of a hiking of two and half hours and then on the top of the hill you can see the French colonial runis, its also called the Ghost town.
Enquiring further we got to know that we can take a Taxi to Phnom Penh for 30-35 $ and we could actually do the hill and get back on the same day, so it was decided to do the hike, but we had already taken the bus tickets, so we thot its worth a try returning them and actually to our surprise the lady took the tickets back without any fuss, she didn’t even ask a single question J. We were looking for a place to stay and to book the tour, we found a small Hotel called peeper restaurant which had a room with 3 beds for 9 $ and also the hike for 17$ a person and we straightaway booked it. We got fresh and sat down for lunch. Vidya [Sagar] had two beers and was feeling a bit high :P , the plan was to rent motor bikes and go on exploring the nearby places on our own, bt Vidya said he was a bit high and actually it was too sunny, so we decided to take a tuk tuk, the root was decided to see some nearby caves, go to the beach at Kep and to the Salt fields.
The first stop was the caves when I initially started climbing a bit up a could see only a small Buddhist temple and couldn’t make out any entrance to the cave, but ofcourse it’s a cave, its not supposed to be in the open. I took my first flower shots with my camera and actually I felt they were great, anyways we headed to the cave. The first cave was a Bat cave and we could actually see bats flying, but the place stunk pretty bad. We got out of it and went to the second one called the Elephant cave and to my surprise the cave was quite beautiful, the entrance was a bit tricky but all of us managed without any problems. We actually were quite satisfied after viewing the caves.
On the way to the beach I tried my hands on driving the Tuk Tuk and did a decent job :D, bt I don’t think I had full control. The beach was bit of a disappointment and it was really muddy, we dived in anyway, but soon got bored. So off we came took a shower and were ready to head back.
After we reached back we wanted to have dinner at a nice place, so we called Dinakar to find a restaurant on Wiki Travel, and he gave us three names, and actually we found one pretty fast. We ordered a bottle of wine and food. The food was really nice and we thanked Dinakar for finding the place for us. We sat at the riverside for a while and headed back to the hotel, lost our way but finally did manage to get back :P.
Next morning started pretty early and Gladston went out for a bicycle ride, Vidya was next to join him as I was still getting ready, and the van arrived to take us to the foot of the Bokor Hill. When we reached there it was already quite hot. We had a small group, less than 15 I think. We were all given a big bottle of water and we started to move ahead, the first 15 -20 minutes were easy and we reached a ranger spot. From there the climb started becoming steeper, after I think 40-45 minutes I was sweating real bad, I don’t think I have sweated so much ever, it reached near a waterfall and stopped there for sometimes, since a few people got behind we had to wait 15-20 minutes and I njoied the photography in the meantime.
The climb was not easy and this was my first hiking trip, so my body wasn’t really up to it, but then I wasn’t feeling really worn out, so continued brisk pace. 5 of us reached the top in just more than 2 hours and it felt great to be part of the first group. But then we had wait for others. Vidya [Sagar] had a tough time climbing up because of his bronchitis and he was among the last to come, but hats off to him for making it, well done. We took a van from there to the top of the Bokor hill to see the French colony. The place was quite nice and it had an old restaurant, hotel, a casino, a postoffice, school, a church and a water tower. The view from above the casino was magnificent and I felt it was worth coming up J.
We had to make the way down in a truck and believe me it would be one of my worst nightmares, as it was pretty bouncy and my back was at risk again. After some time a thought its getting rough and maybe a should take the front seat, so when we stopped I swapped the seat with Vidya, and was quite comfortable. We got down the truck trekked for some 10 minutes and reached the van to take us to the hotel. We reached the hotel around 5 and took a taxi to Phnom Penh. Reached back safely at 8:30 and the weekend had come to an end.
It proved to be yet another exciting weekend for me and my urge to travel is becoming stronger by the day, now I aim to start travelling alone and not waste an weekend sitting idle, theres so much in the world to explore, so many thing to know about, so many places to see, with so little time. I need to start moving J
