The former seaside resort of Kep is an interesting place. The beach isn't all that but after being landlocked for weeks, surrounded by muddy water, it's all very pleasing. It was founded as a resort for colonials but now there are just the ruins of former mansions with cambodian squatters being the new inhabitants. Not that they live in splendor, theyre ju'st concrete shells as the villas were looted in the 80s to sell to the vietnamese to survive a famine. It rained quite a bit while I was there, which was rather appropriate for the place. They have cheesy concrete statues around the place. I'm down with anywhere that pays hommage to the crab :)
Today I headed up into the mountains to check out the remains Bokor, a french hillstation. It was cold as up there in the clouds. Finally found a use for my polyprop! Guidebooks say the road isn't for beginners. This is certainly correct, its rough as. Not unlike the forestry tracks up in the Tararuas Tom and I used to hoon around in as youffs. I was of course going hard out all the way up, jandals not exactly the bestest of offroad attire, but its all I had. They were fine exept when I put a foot down and they'd fly off. Spent 10 minutes looking for one on the way down. I get to the top and some mad b'stard has driven his Camry up there! A testament to the the build quality of a Toyota. In fact, about 90% of cars in cambodia are Toyotas. He does the run everyday taking tourists up there. I told him he was mad. Dirt bike is definately the tranportation method of choice. I talked to a european couple and it took them 2.5 hours to cover the 30k journey, I did it in about 30 mins. Silly tourists clinging on for dear life. Then again they probably thought I was mad, flying past with a toot and a roarrt and they're no doubt right! Barely staying on the track, but I survived with nothing more than a few scratches from the overhanging vegetation.
Former Catholic Church
Bokor covers quite a large area. Some of it was cleared for farmland (I'm picking thats what the several hundred acres of cutty crass was) There are the ruins of a casino, a hotel, lots of houses and a catholic church. The church was very cool. The concrete is covered in some form of orange growth and it was shrouded in mist. The Khmer Rouge holed up in there while the Vietnamese shot at them from the casino once upon a time. Interesting that back then one could baracade ones self in a building as a strategy, these days they'd call in an airstrike and it's all over. Standing on the roof of the old hotel was strange, I felt and intense loneliness up there, obscured from civilisation by the mist. Was hard to imagine the place being habited. Thats the idea of such a desolate place though me thinks. Then a ute would pull up and 15 tourists would jump out, missing the whole point of the place.
The town of Kampot itself is a dive although I have a nice room with bathroom for $2! There is a school across the road with kids chanting "nyah nyah nyah" all day. Then by night some strange creatures start up in a parody of the chanting children. I dont know what they are, but they live in the grass and there are many.
Learning here is all by rote. SE Asians cannot think out side the square. The don't understand my art because its not a direct depiction of anything in particular. An abstract concept is beyond their comprehension. This doesn't bother me, my art isn't for them. Although the lack of civilisation gets to me a bit. Travelling through this place has really instilled in me the importance of civilisation. As did Sumatra. Countries like this had it handed to them on a plate by the colonials. They then revolt, fair enough, I probably would too, but then choose to destroy all the infrastructure. The Khmer Rouge sent Cambodia back to the stone age, trying to regain the past glory of the Angkor days I think. Shows one cant impose civilisation on a people who are not ready for it. The road to Sihanoukville has been funded by the World Bank (according to a sign I read). Do they complete it in sections? No, they prepare the whole 30k stretch at once, then rather than sealing it, leave it to get full of potholes and fall to bits again while shovel toting labourers fight a losing battle to fill the holes. Third world problems aren't money related, it's a mindset IMHO. They'd rather build an extravagant victory monument than a decent road. I can't seem to create any decent work here, I suppose a mind that developed in the luxury of the developed world has trouble coming to terms with a more primative state of being. Rant rant rant...
To give the Khmers their due though, they do have a love of art. The Khmer Rouge tried to stamp out all culture. They turned Wats into pigstys and trashed angkor wat. The traditional art here is very cool. Its all Ramayana and Buddhist inspired. Naga bridges, statues of demons and gods... Rama and the monkey army, Vishnu churning the sea of milk. The mythology of the place is awesome and it's something we of the West have lost in favour of hard science. Maths and physics... it got man to the moon (or did it :) but its just so uninspiring... so unromatic... so dull. Ah, the joys of developing the right hemisphere of the brain!
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