Day 107 – Phnom Penh to Kampot

Today we were all packed, ready to go on our trip to Kampot, which was claimed to be a 3 hour journey. We had booked through Cool Wrong Hostel, for a 9am pick up from the hostel, with a company called Cosmart. At 9am a guy picked us up and loaded our bags into the Remork Moto. Once loaded, the guy told us that the van is not running due to A/C issues. The next van would be at midday, but there was a local bus at 10am. We agreed to go to the 10am bus, but also as it was cheaper to have originally booked the bus, we asked for a refund.

The guy agreed and took us to his office. Here he made some calls and told us that the 10am bus was also not running and we would have to wait until midday for the next van. We told him to take us back to the hostel and pick us up at 11:30am so we could at least leave our bags and have lunch

We were then picked up again from the hostel, and dropped off at another travel agent’s place called Champa. It was a completely different company and we had to wait until 2:30pm for the van to arrive.

Once the van finally arrived it was overcrowded with 15 people for a bus that could only handle 13 people. Luckily for us, one Cambodian girl left before the van arrived as she gave up waiting. And then 1 hour into the trip, another tourist gave up and asked to get out of the bus. This allowed everyone to have their own seat.

The drive took 6 hours and it was bumper to bumper traffic on horribly bumpy roads. Apparently, after we asked at the guest house, they told us that in 2017 the roads were fixed, and the travel time was only 3 hours. But the roads have since deteriorated.

It was raining heavily once we got to Kampot. After a while the rain eased up and we walked to the Ta Eng Guesthouse. After leaving our bags, we walked to the close by Walkabout Aussie Restaurant, which had tasty if not above our budget meals.

Once we went back to Ta Eng Guesthouse we were greeted by the owner’s son who ended up talking with us for around 20 minutes. He was very friendly and accommodating. The one downside of the place was the hot water unit was broken, and the son told us he would get someone to fix it tomorrow, so we had cold showers tonight.