Kampong Cham - Chump of a place

After an arduous trip from Phnom Penh we arrived into Kampong Cham at about 4.30 and immediately set of in search of, what was to become Si's obsession, a room with a hot shower. First guesthouse wasn't fit for a dog (and had no hot water), the second place only had single rooms available (and still no hot water), the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh were just a fruitless too!! In the end Si begrudgingly dropped his desire for some hot shower and we settled on a little guesthouse on the banks of the Mekhong.

As was routine now - we dropped our packes in a cloud of brown dust and headed off with our new-found friend and his freshly painted tuk-tuk to see the sights. First was the Bamboo Bridge which is built every dry season to enable the villagers on an island to get across and into town. There it was coming up - we could see it.... and there it went! To our surprise we drove right by it without stopping. We mused that when the driver said "You can look at Bamboo Bridge" - he meant it literally! Then, wit hthe sun setting over the fields surrounding Kampong Cham we made a B-line to a Buddhist Temple and Monestary on some hill (Male Hill?? Female Hill??? We're not too sure??) outside town. This was where he was studying to be a monk and was supposebly the home of some fine looking monkeys. On our arrival he enthusiastically hollared out "Here monkey, monkey! Here monkey monkey!!". To our grave disappointment it was monkey bed time and they failed to heed the calling. There would be no monkey for us today :) None the less we strolled around the temples, all the while scheming how to get one of the Buddha statues into our backpacks - already bursting at the seemes. The sun was no below the horizon, darkness was setting in quickly and we left (Buddhaless) towards to night markets in town.

Dinner consisted of a quite nice beef and noodle dish for Si and a repea texperience of Foetus Duck Eggs for Nik. Oh yes... those eggs again!!! The Jackfruit was bought later on proved to be much more delicious. For the firs treal time in our adventure we experience begging - on a scale not seen before by us. Kids were constantly coming up (dirty faces, running noses, torn clothing) pleading for either food or money. Our galant driver shoo'd them away and then in true Buddhist fashion, gave them 100 Riel for their efforts.

And that was the sights of Kampong Cham! The next morning we waited on the roadside for the 10am bus to arrive and take us further north-east - which it duely did at 11am - and watched as conveys of Cambodias military elite were chauffered by in their flash Land Rover and Lexus SUV's - closely followed by truckloads of foot soldiers squeezed into open topped freight trucks.