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!