March 11, 2016 - Day 66 - Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Another early start. We met our guide on the bus. He was very pleasant, and his English speaking was good. He provided excellent background and history as we drove through the countryside for 2 hours. Our destination was a farm outside the city of Kampot. Here we would see how the famous Kampot pepper is grown. My expectation was to find bushes producing some sort of hot pepper. So much for worldly knowledge. What we found were plants growing around and up poles. These plants produced small round peppercorns growing 20 to 30 to a stem. There were hundreds of these stems per plant. At harvesting, these are stripped from the stems and spread on trays to dry in the sun. No fertilizers or pesticides are used. All of the work is manual labor.

I had never heard of Kampot pepper. I will keep an eye open for it. We were told that most of it is exported to Europe.

Back on the bus we drove into the city of Kampot. This is a busy city of 100,000 located along a river not far from the sea. 

We walked into a large market. This was much larger and more crowded than the market in Saigon, yet the city is much smaller. We understood the size once we entered. This place was like a giant, but primitive, mall. It was divided into specialty areas. There were goldsmiths, silversmiths, shoes, dresses, scarves, meat, fish, rice, pepper and on and on. Unfortunately we had no time for shopping. This was only touring for us.

Then we drove through the city. We toured the center and some neighborhoods. We were surprised to see groups of young Americans on the streets. They looked like college students, but we saw no schools. This will require some googling back at home. 

The bus stopped at the river. We got off to walk along it toward the only bridge in sight. There were interesting fishing and tour boats tied up alongside. Again we encountered a group of American girls, but we could not stop to chat. We were kind of on a forced march as the guide strove to keep on schedule. We boarded the bus at the bridge.

It was time for lunch so we drove across the bridge and headed to our restaurant. This was not as luxurious as yesterday, but it was family style table service. I can't remember how many courses we had or what they were. I think I stopped counting at 6. I do remember a very good soup, excellent fish, great noodles, steamed vegetables, Kung pao chicken and, of course, rice. There was more, but I think I was in a coma by then. Satisfied, we reboarded the bus. 

Soon we came to another bridge over a river. We stopped for photos of the fishing fleet tied up along the shore. After a time our guide led us off the bridge and down a path to the floating fishing village. Young children greeted us, and the adults were very cordial. This village of about 140 had no sewage system. Fishing boats were tied up behind these houses. Some women were cleaning fish. A few men were fixing nets. This gave us an insight into how hard life can be for these folks. Yet they all smile and carry on.

It was time to head back to the ship. Part way there we visited a Buddhist temple and monastery. This was a very large complex. It even included a school for local children. Far in the back was a cemetery. The temple exteriors were ornate and pretty. With our mobility issues we did not take our shoes off to enter.

The remainder of our ride took us through the countryside again. This was the dry season. The rice had been harvested. In some of the rice paddies the rice straw had been burned. This not only clears the ground for planting the next crop, it provides a form of fertilizer.

We returned to Amsterdam in time to visit the craft booths set up on the pier. Alice found a very nice woman's scarf and a small purse with an elephant design. We boarded Amsterdam for what would be the last time on this marvelous voyage.