After the evening stroll along the sea, with an infinite selection of strange things, unexpected and never-before-seen sights, it got late. But now another, albeit less pleasant, sight awaits me.
And again a hell of a ride
I'm inevitably back on track at six, again with a heavy head and empty stomach. I' m being taken on a motorcycle to the travel agency. I strongly claim that these few hundred meters are by far the most dangerous five minutes of the journey so far. I will find out shortly that this is by no means the case, but more about that later.
Panopticon
For the time being it' s a matter of waiting once more, and again a panopticon of the strangest figures opens up to my astonished eyes. An Opera Buffa, called daily life, which takes place here and all over the place. With many small and big dramas, many comedies and surprisingly few tragedies (at least not visible). And it seems that this day, too, has some special new tidbits in store.
A spry old man drives past, still in pijamas, sitting sideways on a strange three-wheeled motorbike and waving enthusiastically to all his friends. And then suddenly an old lady is standing before me, her round face all wrinkled. She stretches out a bundle of lottery tickets to me. Upon my regretful refusal, she opens her mouth, in which absolutely not a single tooth is visible, to one of the most beautiful and charming smiles I have seen in a long time. Not much was needed, and her bundle of lottery tickets might have changed hands.
And another hell of a ride in the early morning
Yes, and then I am transported again by motorbike, rucksack on my back, daypack on my chest, helmet on my head, hands convulsively on the securing brackets, and then the wildest hell ride of my life begins.
I’m quite used to a lot in the meantime, but usually out of the perspective of a bystander, but this time I am a participant in this daredevil game, a new version of „Grand Theft Auto 5“. The driver – a young lad of barely twenty – apparently wants to show the westerners, what he is able to, for his foot seems to know only the accelerator pedal, which he holds pressed during the whole trip.
Paris-Dakar Rally
He overhauls trucks, buses, tractors, motorcycles, bicycles, tractors with roaring cylinders and rattling exhaust. He evades pedestrians and other obstacles with elegant side swings, every few minutes - the longest of my life - we scrape by a hair's breadth past oncoming vehicles.
At one of those moments, I realize that I have stopped breathing. The bumps do theirs because every time he rushes over it as if it was a matter of winning the Paris-Dakar rally, the shock absorbers hit through to the stop. Cheers to my intervertebral discs. But somehow we are suddenly there, braking, a cloud of dust, a deep breath, and the adventure is over, survived.
No man's land
Between the two border posts there is no man’s land, which means it is somehow situated outside the law, and so numerous casino palaces are constructed, huge, tasteless buildings apparently orientating themselves by Las Vegas casinos, but their cheapness only manifest that the only target is to draw money out of their customer’s pockets the easiest and fastest way possible.
In the meantime Valentino Rossi smuggles me through the customs clearance, but strangely enough nobody shows any interest in me, neither on the Vietnamese nor the Cambodian side, and so, after Rossi has given me a last triumphant grin, I realize that I am in Cambodia, stamp in the passport, and eureka, a new country.
And suddenly a silence
But the new country provokes quite a shock. On the Vietnamese side a thousand vehicles, millions of people, hustling and bustling, but here a sudden and unexpected silence. The road in front of me, narrow, full of holes, surrounded on both sides by parched fields, is empty. Not a single soul or vehicle to be seen.
No sign of life, apart from a couple of emaciated cows, searching the grassless ground, burned to concrete by the sun. I am sitting alone in a broken-down minibus, the driver, a dark brown guy, obviously a Khmer, has greeted me with a short nod and he is supposed to drive me to Kep, today’s destination. While driving along the dead straight, still completely empty road at a leisurely pace, my eyes lie, incredulous and concerned, on the landscape. Hundredths of thoughts swirling in my head, the idea of a dark shadow lying like Mordor on the country, cannot be displaced …
Kep
The journey does not take long, it is only 25 kilometers, and after half an hour we reach Kep. The usual TukTuks await me on the main square not far from the sea.
The TukTuk driver takes me to my destination. It's much further than expected, over a dusty, very wide road towards the interior. There is only one vehicle at the roadside, otherwise there is absolutely no traffic on the road. An almost shock-like experience after Vietnam …
But the hotel's great, and the owner's a treasure. It's a bit out of town, but you have to plan a footpath of about three quarters of an hour. But the room with the terrace is one of the best I've ever been.
Walk in the afternoon
As mentioned – the walk down to the town is long but full of surprises. Empty houses stand at the roadside, abandoned and destroyed by wind and weather. I'm convinced that rich people lived here, who probably had to leave their house due to the turmoil of the Pol Pot regime and possibly perished …
What the strange statue not far from the center means is beyond my knowledge. A deity ...?
There are a number of restaurants overlooking the ocean by the sea. I sit down on a rock near the shore and watch the fishermen mending their nets.
Crabs
But at some point the stomach growls, and the signs in front of the entrance to the restaurants primarily advertise their crab menus. Of course I can't resist …
Crab Amok
The Crab Market is the centre of Cambodia's crab industry, so let's go and eat crabs for the first time. One restaurant after the other, many look suspiciously of foreign owners. In the shallow sea there are countless locals searching for the coveted crawlers, just fishing boats, as in Mui Ne, you search in vain ...
Now then, Crabs. The problem of my dislike of everything I have to cut up with my hands is solved by a "crab amok", a kind of crab slices that don't taste bad, but I would have expected it a little more tasty.
P.S. Matching Song: Portishead - Silence
And here the journey continues ...
