Stopover at Kampong Cham

Since Ban Lung is rather far from Phnom Penh, we decided to add a stopover on our way to the capital. Kampong Cham is quite a big city, not exactly pretty but with a nice riverfront and a couple of touristic points of interest.

The few guesthouses are all located on the riverfront area, and apparently they all share the same low quality independently of the price. Based on a guidebook's recommendation and the cleanliness of the place we chose one among them. We would soon regret our choice.

The room was clean, but the conditions of the bathroom could vary wildly during the day. Our room, which resembled a hospital room, was equipped with two fans, definitely insufficient to keep the temperature down. The door could not be locked from the inside, so we had to set-up a door alarm (using backpacks and plastic bottles) at night. Although the worst part was a guy that lives in the hostel. He may be the nicest person in the world, but he tried to hug K the very first time we met him, and likes to hide inside an empty dark room right in front of our door. That scared us a little and made our stay in the guesthouse even more unpleasant. K didn't dare to leave the room alone at night, I even had to escort her to the bathroom. Without any doubt the worst hostel that we had been to during this trip.

Apart from that our stay here wasn't bad at all. K rented a scooter and drove us around to see the few sights in the area. You may have noticed that K likes the scooters a lot. Some of our destinations are chosen based on whether you can rent a motorbike! I enjoy the rides a bit less, but it's hard to fight her new two-wheeled passion.

Twenty kilometers of dusty road took us to a rather famous hilltop wat. The views were nice but the "highlight" here are the many statues of animals, fruit, vegetables and food. Locals seem to love it. We liked the villages along the way better. The road and most houses are built well above the surrounding ground level, to avoid flooding during the rain season.

Nice example of the local architectural style

Bars and restaurants on the riverfront were much more interesting for us. You can spend your time sipping a young coconut milk or a freshly squeezed sugar cane juice while wondering how the long bamboo bridge can withstand the weight of motorbikes and cars. The bridge is a remarkable structure, which needs to be rebuilt every year since during the wet season it usually gets wiped out by the high waters.

Hard life

Intricate bamboo structure

Yes, that's a car!

During our stay we discovered that it was possible to go directly to Siem Reap without passing through Phnom Penh. This way we would save some time and money, although we would end up in the Angkor area in the worst possible season: New Year's Eve. Nevertheless we decided to risk it, booked a guesthouse, bought the bus tickets and took an early morning bus towards the most famous tourist destination in Cambodia (probably in the whole Southeast Asia region)... Angkor Wat.