|
|
TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
|
|
“blissfully deserted!” |
After much thumbing of the lonely planet, plans were afoot. We decided to hire motorbikes, head to Kirirom National park and do some horseriding. As it happened there were no bikes to rent for love nor money (we tried both) so we bussed it down to the turn off and then got moto rides up the mountain. We arrived and were the only people there - blissful! It felt deserted - a feeling that would re-occur many times during my stay in Cambodia - mainly because Cambodia was developing fairly rapidly in the early 70s and then the clocks were turned back to 'year zero' but some of the infrastructure remained. Kirirom was a Khmer Rouge base until fairly recently. We settled in to a lovely view at sunset and ate the feast that somehow the people who ran the lodge were able to prepare for us - had they been expecting us - they certainly werent expecting anyone else - we WERE the clientele!
The next day we discovered that the horseriding would not materialise either, but not particularly bothered, we went on a long walk to find waterfalls. The park looked a bit like I imagine the big American parks to look, great expanses, tall trees, boulders etc. I managed to find someone selling beautiful floral crowns, so had to buy one - being a hippy and all - and felt a bit like something out of midsummers nights dream - lovely. The same people were selling what could only be described as tree jewellery - natural hanging plants that you tie round trees, presumably to beautify them. Interesting. Marvelously we got completely lost and found ourselves at a pagoda (where the monks live) by what appeared to be some rapids but could not be called a waterfall as such... nice though! Fortunately a very dodgey looking man on a moto - clearly ex KR - offered to drive us to where we had gone wrong... and yes that would be all four of us on the moto - driver, me, Al and Charlie - going uphill.... Unsurprisingly, his vehicle started to make some somewhat disturbing noises... but we got their eventually. When we got to the waterfall - again, it was more water than fall but the environs were like a deserted village - clearly at some other time they anticipated many people - but we were still the only foreigners we'd seen since leaving Phom Pehn and there didnt seem to be any khmer tourists either....Thanking our driver kindly and paying him generously we made a quick getaway - keen to move on by ourselves and continue our walk... and then head back to Phnom Penh for a farewell to Charlie who was now heading to Mumbai via Bangkok - as you do.
All in all a really lovely excursion! Managed to get some pretty swift transport connections back to PP - which was great as that night we would be taken by a guy from the guesthouse to the local kareoke (pronounced Kara-OK) joint for some proper fun, Khmer style. This was a great place where you could either hum a ditty from the stage or from your seat and where there were clearly some professional amatueurs...to his credit Charlie gave what sounded to me and Al like a bona fide Khmer rendition of something - whether the locals thought so -who knows - it went down a storm though! A really great evening. That night I said a big sad farewell to Charlie. He'd picked me up from the islands and we'd started the Cambodian adventure together - we'd had a lot of laughs and a lot of good chats... but his path takes him home, and mine takes me onwards...
previous travel blog entry
Would you like to comment or ask a question?
Sign up for a free account, or sign in (if you're already a member).