Our trip to SE Asia is winding down and we are definitely moving into relaxation mode with our time here in Khao Lak. We were upgraded to a lovely pool access room here at the Fanari Resort, and so we have been able to take some time to just sit and enjoy the pool right outside our door when the sun is out.

We have had a couple of days where the weather has not been too co-operative, and one of those was a full rain out. We can still sit outside on the terrace as even with the rain it is still nice and warm, but we are not venturing too far from the hotel. It does provide for some quite time to catch up on some email and a bit of work and I managed to get done a few things to whittle down the backlog of things that would otherwise be waiting for me when I get back.

The forecast looked like it was going to open up a bit weather wise so we decide to rent motorbikes again and try and get in a bit of exploring. Now that we have gotten comfortable with a few new means of local transportation with the rental cars and motorbikes, it has allowed us to get out and see even more things than we could have on private tours and day trips.

There is an island north of here called Koh Koh Khao that is our goal for the first day, but we only get about half way before we see the dark clouds rolling in on the coast and decide that there is no point on riding towards the rain. We decide to try for a side road up to a waterfall, but the road deteriorates to just a muddy path fairly quickly and decide that  we should just accept defeat for the day. We did have a nice day while the sun was out though, and found a few quiet little beach stops along the way out.

The second day was much better. The skies had a nice bit of light cloud so as to not be roasting hot, and we did not see any rain all day aside from about a 3 minute burst right at the end but we were stopping for a drink anyway!

This time we ended up making it all the way to Koh Koh Khao. After about a 45 minute ride up the coast you come to a small town where we are told that we can catch a ferry across a small straight to the island. We are not exactly sure where to catch the ferry and because the town is small and out of the mainstream, most of the sighs are only in Thai, but we figure that the place is not that big we will just follow the shore until we find it. Our first guess seems good from the road and we turn off towards some boats, but it turns out to be a fishing dock, and we try to ask for directions, but our Thai is not that good, and the people’s English was not that good and after some hand waving a nice girl offered to escort us to the right place.

As we often find out here things are not often the same for the locals as they would be for us back home, and it turns out their definition of ferry is not exactly what we might be used to. The ‘ferry’ for us and our motorbikes is actually an old longtail boat that has a bunch of plank decking instead of the seating that a longtail might usually have. The boatman tells us it is 40 baht each (about $1.25US) to cross and then makes some gestures that we should climb aboard. The surf is rolling the boat a bit as we walk on, but the boatman drives our motorbikes about like it is no big deal and then sticks a bit of wood behind the tire so that they don’t roll around too much during the short crossing – no straps or ties or anything and I raise an eyebrow a chuckle a bit, but who am I to question something that they have clearly been doing for a long time.

The ride across is about 10 minutes and in no time at all we are unloaded on the other side and ready to go. The whole island is only about 30km long and there is basically one main road that runs down the center of the island with occasional branches off to some of the resorts along the beaches on the west coast, or off into the fields that cover the rest of the island. Except for a few small foothills towards the north east corner the island itself is mainly flat, and in reality is more like a big sandbar. I would say that 90% of the entire island is less than 10 feet above sea level.

The impact of low season is even high here as it is a bit more remote, and during our entire ride on the island I think we only saw other tourist one time, and other locals not a whole lot more. It was quite awesome to have the entire road to ourselves most of the time, and we would just venture off onto some of the side roads to check out the beach or whatever they led off to. Most of the resorts here were closed for the season, and either wrapped up in a sort of screen to keep the weather and sand out, or were undergoing maintenance in preparation for the next high season. We even saw a few places that clearly just had not been able to make a go of it and were getting beaten down by the elements.

We reached the north tip of the island and there is another ferry dock here where you could catch another longtail boat to another island farther north, but we don’t want to chance not getting back for the last ferry to the mainland so decide to just explore a bit more on the island we are on. The map shows a road that goes down the east side of the island in behind the foothills that are there, and notes a couple of waterfalls to see, and we figure that we have time for that. If the road is on the map, it must be good right? We don’t get too far down the road before it changes from concrete to grave and then to packed dirt with washed out sections, but we are still on the ‘road’ and still looking for the waterfall.

After bouncing around on the rough trail for a few kilometers we come to ‘the waterfall’. By technical definition it is accurate because there is water and it is falling – about 2 feet. At first we think it is a trick like the place we saw in Cambodia where the actual falls are just around the bend, but that is not the case here and farther ahead the road only turns into more of a goat path so we decide that the smart choice is to give up and go back. It is getting late in the day anyway, and we want to get back before dark.

After crossing back on the ferry and back down the highway towards Khao Lak we decide to ride to the south end of the area to where we stayed back in 2009 when we came with the kids. This area has gone through a lot of reconstruction from the 2004 tsunami, and then a ton of growth on top of that, and lots of places don’t look even remotely the same as just a few short years ago.

A few of the places are the same, and one of the restaurants we went to is still around – although closed for the season – and we get down to the beach where we spent time with the kids. It is nice to see the place that we have some good memories from and it makes us think of seeing them all soon when we get home in a few days.

We have one more day here that we plan to just take it easy and enjoy the pool and then it will be time to pack up once again to make the trek back to Bangkok and then the long flight home.

We have quite enjoyed our time in Cambodia, and I could see us returning to the coastal region again in the future, but with the weather turning against us all the signs suggest that a change of venue will give us a better chance of enjoying our last week in SE Asia. It is low season everywhere so we know that it comes with some chances of being rainy, but the forecasts for the south of Thailand while still scattered look more favorable than Sihanoukville where we were planning to go next.

A short bus ride back to Phnom Penh and a couple of one hour flights later we have landed in Phuket and are on our way to Khao Lak. We have been here back in 2009 when we came with the kids and quite liked the area so figured it would be worth some more exploration time.

Our hotel, the Fantari, is about a block from the beach, and has a lovely pool, so even if it rains a bit the chances of unwinding here are pretty good. There is even a massage place less than 100 feet away from our hotel room so that is the clincher for me 😉  They even have real breakfast here with a full buffet of bacon, eggs, fruit, bacon, bacon, and did I mention bacon?! Makes me happy, happy, happy.

Hopefully we get enough decent weather to go out and do a bit of looking around – even perhaps rent some motorbikes again, that would make Mrs. Columbus happy, happy, happy!

It is our last full day in Cambodia and we have decided that we had such a great day the day before on the motorbikes that we are going to rent them again.

Outside of the city of Kampot there is a large plateau up in the hills known as the Bokor Highlands. In the early 1900s a hill station, a church, a casino, and a variety of other buildings were built up on the highlands. The highlands are about 1000 meters above sea level, and even though it is in the tropics the temperature is about 10C cooler than the coast during the hot season so Bokor Hill Station became a place for well to do foreigners and Cambodians to come to escape the heat of the lowlands or the bustle of Phnom Penh.

The highlands was a busy place for decades until the Khmer Rouge era when it was abandoned as a vacation spot around 1972 and used by the Khmer Rouge as a stronghold during their conflict with the Vietnamese. Today the highlands is home to a huge new casino megaproject that will add golf courses and housing developments in future phases. Some of the original buildings still remain though and after years of abandonment leave haunting reminders of a forgotten time. This of course all adds up to an adventure for us to go up to the highlands for a nice long ride, and look around at the old ruins.

The trip to Bokor from Kampot is about 50km and in addition to a good vertical rise to the top, the road is quite twisty with a lot of curves and switchbacks, so this makes for a fun ride. As we enter the park we are surprised to find that the road was fully replaced/upgraded by the casino project and we are now riding on what is probably the best road in Cambodia and with almost no other traffic! As we climb up the mountainside we are rewarded with some incredible views down to the coast and also over Kampot and the surrounding rice fields.

It is low season here, and we know that the skies are not going to be clear and sunny all day, but we have been watching the mountain for a few days from the city and know we are highly likely to encounter some clouds and maybe even some light rains along the way. As we get about halfway up the mountain we start to ride through small patches of low-lying cloud and it is quite interesting to be ‘up there’ in the cloud cover. What we are not prepared for is the amount that the cloud cover increases in density as we get closer to the top. By the time we reach the highlands the visibility has dropped to about 20 feet and we are riding through the pea-soup fog!

We are starting to wonder if maybe we should just turn back as the temperature has dropped a bit and we wonder if we will actually be able to see anything but I had read that some of the old buildings look even more eerie when the fog is around so we decide we have come this far we might as well go on for a bit farther.

We come to a roundabout and one of the roads leads off to a waterfall so we decide to go there first, and oddly as we round a few corners the fog clears off completely and we are riding across the highland with relatively clear skies. It is still a bit cooler up here than down at sea level, and when we see what is clearly going to be a huge housing development along the road I wonder who would actually choose to live up here given the crappy and swiftly changing weather they have for at least half the year.

Towards the end of the road we reach the waterfall and are surprised to see what looks like a fairly large conference center type building and an outdoor sitting/eating area, but not another soul around anywhere. We go down to have a look at the waterfall and initially are a little disappointed – the waterfall does not look like much more than a bit of rapids and we are getting ready to wander off when we spot a rough trail off to one end of the viewpoint. We get about 20 feet into the jungle and this is where the real falls are! Just past the public viewpoint the riverbed drops off a cliff and down into a valley below. The drop is probably 100 to 150 feet and the river cascades through a couple of pools to the bottom. The edge is pretty sheer and Mrs. Columbus sounds the warning tone as I try to get out closer for a good picture – unfortunately the pictures will never show it as well as the real thing.

Now it is time to go back towards the main part of the highlands to the original hill station and casino. As soon as we get back near the main roundabout the fog closes back in and the visibility drops off dramatically again. After a bit more climbing we are down to about 10 feet of visibility and moving pretty slow to make sure we don’t suddenly meet something bigger than us on the road.

I know there is a Wat up here somewhere and after a few more kilometers in the fog we can see the gate to the temple. It seems that this side of the highland pretty much drops almost straight down to the lowlands and the temple is built on the high point of the highlands and right on the edge of the cliff. When we are standing at the wall along the edge of the grounds with the thick blanket of mist that is everywhere it feels like we are right on the edge of the earth with the great nothing just steps away. It is very hard to describe how it looked and how I felt standing there, but in some ways I am happy that the fog is there and the illusion it creates instead of what is probably an equally awesome view on a clear day!

With the light wind and the misty fog, and rain that could start at any time Mrs Columbus decides that it is time for her to break out her rain poncho. She hopes that it will also help to keep her at least slightly warmer for the rest of the ride. I am not sure about any of that, but at least the sound of the thin plastic flapping in the wind allows me to know where she is when I am riding in front 🙂

I am still hoping to see the old casino and some of the other old abandoned buildings so we get back on the road to look for those. It soon becomes clear that we are not going to get any break at all from the fog, and the visibility is so poor that we almost cannot see the road signs anymore. The road we are on suddenly ends and on our right side is an old building – probably a large house at one time – and on our left side is a large new house. We can only see them because they are built right next to the road, if they had been built another 20 feet or so back we would have never known they were there. It is quite a stark contrast between the new and the old, and I wonder a bit why the new house was built there as the view out the front door looks a bit like a Detroit slum.

We take a few minutes to wander in and around the old building and it is quite creepy exploring it in the fog – kind of like being in a Stephen King movie, but I can tell by her chattering teeth that Mrs. Columbus is still cold, and starting to not have fun anymore, so we turn around and head back. I tell her that if we see the casino on the road we will stop otherwise we can start down the mountain. As we are working our way back down the road – again fairly slowly because I almost can’t see more than about a bike length in front of me – I see a guy sitting by the side of the road?! I could have easily not seen him at all in the thick fog, but I stop to see if maybe he can tell me where the casino is. It turns out that he is a security guard who’s job it is to watch the casino site. The casino is apparently a short walk off the road but we can’t even see the faintest indication of it through the fog and the guard basically tells us that the fog is so thick that there is not much to see today. I would kind of like to explore a bit, but my companion is getting a bit antsy, and I figure that if the fog keeps getting thicker that the ride down is going to be even trickier, so I guess we will leave this exploration for another trip and it is back to the bikes and down the mountain we go.

(these are not my photos, but are what we would have seen if the visibility was not sooo bad)

The ride is a bit iffy for about 20 minutes and then almost like there is a gate or something we ride out of the fog and back into clearing skies – very weird indeed. The rest of the ride back down the mountain is quite fun, and by the time we are about half way down we are all dry again and warm enough for Mrs. Columbus to take her rain condom off. It was interesting to watch her ride with it on though because from behind with the plastic flapping in the breeze she looked a bit like a superhero 😉

It has been a good day overall – the ride on the good mountain road was quite fun, and as we return to Kampot it is time to start thinking about dinner and getting ourselves packed up for our departure tomorrow.

For dinner we have decided once again to return to the Rusty Keyhole 2 – a nice little pub that serves homemade food all prepared by a fellow from Manchester and his Cambodian wife. The food is really good and this is our third time here, but it seemed like a fitting spot for our last night in Kampot.

I am not sure if Mrs. Columbus has a bucket list, but if she does it one of the items on the list would definitely be riding a motorcycle. We talked about this briefly last year when we were over here, and even took a class when we got home to get familiar with riding motorbikes.

Well today is the day that she will be able to actually cross that item off her list! We have decided to rent motorbikes here and ride out to Kep for the day.After breakfast we make our way into town to one of the shops we have seen that rents scooters and hook ourselves up with a pair for a mere $5 US per day each. The bikes are delivered empty, so our first stop will be at a filling station, but after that it is out onto the open road to feel the wind in our hair and the bugs in our teeth.

Kep is right on the coast and used to be a very popular resort area for wealthy French and Cambodian families up until the Khmer Rouge era when the owners of some of the big properties had to strip them down to the bricks to exchange anything of value for cash so that they could buy food that was smuggled in from Vietnam. What remains is a small little seaside town with a bunch of old colonial style French mansions in serious states of decay.

Kep has a reputation for it’s seafood, and when we stop at the waterside market there are lots of women working right at the waterside bringing in basket after basket of crabs that are trapped less than 10 feet from the dock. From the water they go straight to the vendors who either have a stall selling fresh seafood, or have a stall selling fresh cooked seafood. It is quite a busy place with lots of activity crammed into a fairly small area, but Mrs. Columbus is not a fan of seafood, so she is looking to move on. On the way out of the market she does manage to spot a vendor selling waffles, so that warrants a stop. After some interesting haggling between a woman who only speaks English and a woman who only speaks Khmer we walk away with some things that look, and hopefully taste, like waffles for about 50 cents.

The drive around the coast of Kep is quite scenic as the road mostly follows the coast with the road built on a seawall, and in the main town there is a long stretch of beach that seems to be quite busy with local people. We don’t often see locals at the beaches, but because it is low season I suspect there are not many tourists about, and because it is a Sunday I think many of the local people are out with their families.

Once we get to the town-site we fork off the main road to go in behind the town – this is where all the old mansions are. The area is slowly starting to see a bit of rebuilding, but there is yard after yard of large plots of land with big stone or brick walls and decaying buildings inside. The whole scene is very interesting and a bit eerie all at the same time, and I’m sure a director of  ghost movies could have a ball here.

While riding around the back of the city we find a couple of side roads off into the hills and decide ‘why not’ and off we go on our ‘all terrain’ motorbikes. The first road leads up the hillside to a temple. The temple site like much of the old city seems almost like it is abandoned and initially we think that once the main pagoda was built that the people just walked away from the rest of the building, but as we are standing there looking at some of the buildings, the requisite Cambodian looking to be our ‘guide’ and a handout wanders up out of nowhere. We have been down this road before and are getting better at just dismissing them, so we take our time to look around and then back down the dirt road to our second off-road adventure.

The second road leads up into a valley, and according to the map there is a butterfly farm and a small resort at the end, but what we find at the end is a bit of a surprise. The Jasmine Valley Resort that marks the end of the road is totally abandoned! There is not a sole around, and as we walk through the place it is a bit creepy to see something that was once an active resort be completely vacant of any people. We see some printed materials here that indicate that there were guests here as recently as February or March 2014, but it is clear that the jungle moves quickly if not managed because by just looking at the place you would think it had been abandoned at least a year or two ago. At this rate, the remains of someone’s dream will soon become an Indiana Jones movie set!

Back to the town-site and time to start moving on, we start down another road on the map that should link us back to the highway, but just because it is a road on the map does not necessarily mean it is passable. A couple of kilometers into the journey the dirt road becomes unmanageable on our little 125cc bikes, and we are forced to turn back and go through the city. The main highway loops around the peninsula that Kep is located on, and pretty soon we are heading back in the direction of Kampot.

After returning to town we still have a few hours of daylight left and looking at the map there are a couple of spots that seem close enough to check out. To the north of town there is a place called Tuek Chou that appears to have some sort of waterfall and a national park, and to the south there is an island connected by a causeway with some marked roads, so we will go as far as we can before hunger or darkness sets in.

We ride about 5-10km up the small valley to the north first, and after paying our entry fee of $1 ($0.50 each) we go in search of the waterfall. It turns out that the only waterfall that we can see is created by a hydro-electric dam on the river that was built and run by a Chinese company. As we get towards the dam itself a couple of guys in fatigues gesture to us in the international sign of “you can’t go there mate” so we turn around and head back down the valley.

As we start to turn around we can hear a noise like rushing water and Mrs. Columbus asks what the noise is. We are close to the river and the dam, and I think it is just the sound of rushing water, but it turns out I was wrong! In a ‘you hear it before you see it’ moment we turn our heads at the same time and see a cloudburst moving down the valley. The noise of the rain coming down on the jungle is surprisingly loud, and before we can even start down the road the rain overtakes us – we zip down the road to cower under the nearest tree before we get too soaked, and wait the requisite 10 minutes before the rain passes, and the heat is back again. We start off towards the island south of town, and are actually dry again before we even complete the 8km back to the town.

The island is about another 5km or south to the south from town, and is not a tourist spot at all. The land area is covered with rice farms, salt farms, and a couple of villages, and lots of fishing boats. A couple of marginal dirt roads mostly circle the island and it is a nice little ride going by places that clearly don’t see a lot of white people on motorbikes as we stand out just a little 🙂 Lots of waves and shouts of ‘hello’ from the children as we pass by.

Finally it is starting to get towards the end of the day, and hunger is starting to set in so we head back to Kampot to turn in our motorbikes and sit down for some dinner. Mrs. Columbus is giddy like a schoolgirl from her day on a motorbike, and we are already talking about going out again tomorrow. It only cost us $5 for the bike, $4 for fuel for the whole day, so some pretty good entertainment value!

I would have thought that it would be hard to do less than nothing, but it feels like over the last couple of days that is what we have accomplished. Not to say that is a bad thing as we are on vacation after all, and sometimes you need to just relax and take in the surroundings.

The weather here in Kampot is working against us (or for us if the actual plan was to take a few days off), and the rain has set in. We are used to rain in SE Asia that typically comes in short downpours, but this is the socked in, I’m sticking around for a while kind of rain, and any sort of day trip or anything that we could do would just end up with a bunch of crabby people in a van looking at things from the windows.

We spend these couple of days reading books, having some video chats with the kids back home, and just generally hanging around at our hotel. They have a big sala down at the riverside with a few big basket chairs and I have discovered that they must have been designed with reading a book on your Kindle in mind.

The good news is that it is supposed to clear in a couple of days so we are planning trips to Kep and Bokor Hill station if the weather co-operates. The bad news is that it is supposed to actually get worse after that, and one of the forecasts I read for our next stop in Sihanoukville is for ‘torrential downpour’ for a few days. Based on that forecast we have decided that maybe we should move on from Cambodia for this year and spend our last week back in Thailand where the weather forecast seems a bit more in our favor.

All is not lost here though, as we have had a nice couple of days to relax, and we were able to use the downtime to make the arrangements for the next leg of our trip.