Kampot

Kampot is renowned for producing some of the world's finest pepper - and it's also Cambodia's main producer of durians ... and if you've never tried durian fruit you must.  It's kind of hard to describe in words either the taste or the smell, which is obnoxious!!!

Kampot is a riverside town with a very relaxed feeling to it, and we spent the day exploring the local area.

First stop was some salt flats.  Salt is collected during the dry season (which is not now) and often local farmers will work in the rice fields during the wet season and the salt flats in the dry season.  Both are gruelling labour.

Although salt is not currently being harvested we could still get an idea for the scope of work involved, as well we could see where the salt if being stored, bagged, and loaded onto trucks.  Each of these men earns the equivalent of about 8 cents / bag - and as a team of 5 they must load 1000 bags each day.  Each bag weighs 50 kg.

After the salt fields we made a quick stop at a little local fishing/farming village.

Next stop today was at Phnom Chhnork - basically a village with a buddhist monastery built into a hillside.  Some spectacular views climbing up the hillside:

At the temple we were fortunate enough to be able to see the monks leading a prayer session with many of the local villagers in attendance.

After that we went to see a pepper farm, something for which Kampot is renowned.  The industry was all but destroyed by the Khmer Rouge who believed in growing rice, not spice.  Kampot pepper is grown in small family farms that dot Kampot province.  Kampot grown peppercorns are delicate and aromatic... and pack a powerful punch!

Lunch time found us in Kep, a small little fishing peninsula/village.  We had a lovely seafood lunch here, and there's no doubt the catch was fresh, fresh, fresh!

After our tour we had a bit of free time pack in Kampot and I just walked around the town a bit more.  It was particularly pleasant walking along the river.

If you look carefully at the start of the bridge you will see a very good way of making sure that no big vehicles drive across this old bridge.

Tonight we went on a river cruise - a lovely, relaxing way to end the day.

One other stop today was to take photos of the water buffalo.  There aren't huge numbers of them here but they certainly are useful for working in the rice fields.

And yes, my usual component of "people pictures".