A Kampot Wedding and Waterfalls

So it's been a few days since I last wrote, but I guess that's just because I'm too busy having so much fun! Lani and I have been shaking and moving our way through Cambodia, and since leaving our sunny days at the beaches of S-ville, we ventured SE to Kampot. Along the bus ride there, we picked up two blokes from England - Sam and Chris - who we actually ended up spending the next couple days with. It worked out well because we were all going to Kampot to explore Bokor National Park (there is not much else to do in the place), and we ended up booking a day-tour trip together. However, before discussing our national park day, let me just tell you that we hit the jackpot on our first evening in Kampot, by joining the locals at a wedding celebration. Basically, we left our hotel rooms because of the horrendous musical (if that's what you can call it) sounds that were flooding through our windows. We couldn't sleep anyway, so we figured we'd go check out what was making such a ruckus. As we stood staring, a sweet Cambodian girl with a beautiful pink, decorative prom dress strolled out to the 4 foreigners and invited us to join in the festivities. What a treat! We danced typical Cambodian style, which consisted of a 2-step, sometimes 4 if we were changing things up, in a circle around a table, and lots of funky hand movements. We did this for a little over 2 hours. We were sweating bullets underneath this circus-like tent and were totally swarmed by gnats, due to the large light that hung above the table we were prancing around. But it was such a cool experience - totally what you live for when you're traveling and trying to be a part of the culture, in some shape or form. It will be quite a night to remember. Interacting with the locals, laughing and dancing, and the little 4-year olds drinking warm beer from a straw. Quite a memory!

The next day we were off to Bokor National Park by 4-wheel drive vehicle - which really consisted of an old, rickety Nissan truck, where customers actually sat in the back of the truck bed. The truck bed was fixed up with 2 pieces of hardwood for seats and a metal bar/railing in the center of the truck bed for the passengers to hold on to. Well, it would've been fine for maybe an hour - but they forgot to mention that it was a 2.5 hr trip up the mountain. And since it's wet season here, the roads are pretty washed out and made for quite the bumpy ride. This picture only gives you a brief display of the road we traveled.

Anyway, other than the bumpy ride and sore butt for days following, it was a good day. We even did a short hike to some waterfalls - but since it's wet season, the water was flowing too quickly for us to jump in and swim.

The day's tour ended with a sunset cruise along the river. I wouldn't call this so much a cruise, as it was a crowded riverboat making it's way down the river. But it was beautiful - and it's really neat to see the Cambodian people's grass huts/homes built along the water and the children laughing and playing in the water. And it ended up being a pretty nice sunset as well, with a cloudy sky, palm trees and a winding river to take us back into Kampot.

Since our previous evenings adventure couldn't really be topped, and since we'd spent all day in the sun exploring the park and bumping our way down the road less travelled, we called it an early night. Plus, we had a 7:30 a.m. departure by bus the next morning to Phnom Penh (PP). It's funny, although neither Lani or I are big fans of PP, it seems to be our home base and central launching pad for our other Cambodian travels.