Kompong Cham 16th October

We drove for 4 hours in the sweltering heat to a small town called Kompong Cham. This town is right on the Mekong River and is the gate way to the Eastern area of Cambodia. When travelling was really difficult in Cambodia - with unmade roads, Kampong Cham was a major stopping point/ market town.

The town had only been welcoming foreign tourists for 2 years and you could really tell this. Mainly becuase the people were so friendly and thought we were a novelty. Genuinely wanting to speak to us to find out about us rather that to try adn sell us stuff.

We just had the afternoon and evening here so crammed in as much as possible. The whole tour group made a deal with some Tuk Tuk drivers to just take us around all the local sites.

The first stop was to visit the Cham people's village. They are a minority Muslim community who live in the area. Originating centuries ago from Northern Vietnam (I think!). Cambodia is famous for its cotton and silk weaving and Kampong Cham is the main town for this - the Cham women weave silk for thier main income so we went to see them do this. It was very much a cottage industry. Their village was to all intents and purposes a slum - I think it did have electricy and running water but the people were incredibly poor nad you could see they had been maginalised. I would say though, that their mosque was brand new and really impressive - its always interesting to see what people's priorities are! There were loads of kids in the village adn tehy all followed us around thinking it was highly amusing that these wierd looking people wanted to walk around thier village - they were really sweet, a little bit shy and very curious!

Or next stop was the Women and Man hills just outside the town. Legend has it that before these hills were built, the women of the town were the ones who had to propose marriage to the men. The women got fed up of this and proposed a competition. Both sexes had to build a hill - whoever completed it first before sunset, should be the one who gets proposed to. So both the men adn women began building thier hills. But the women lit a huge bonfire beofre the end of the day to trick the men into thinking it was sunset already. Consequently, the men upped sticks and went home early not completing thier hill, leaving the women to complete thier hill before sunset. Thus the women won the right to be proposed to! Brains over braun works everytime!

Both hills had temples on them and really good views of the surrounding countryside. The Man hill had a tragic past. It had been the site of a killing filed during Pol Pot's regime. Persecuted people of the area were held and then massacred here between 1975 to 1979. One of the statues oustide the temple still bore marks of where the Khemer Rouge soldiers' swords had been sharpened. One of our tuk tuk drivers'parents had been held here and killed in the massacre.

We passed more Vietnamese boat people on the Mekong and then our final stop was to a Cambodian village, to watch the women there weave cotton. They weave the traditional scarves here - which are red and whte checked. i bought one as a sarong and then later discovered I'd been royally ripped off adn you could get them much cheaper in the local market as opposed to buting them straight off the weavers!! Mine was $5 - should have paid $1!

In the evening, the whole group went to a local families'house for dinner. Becuase Kampong Cham does not have proper infrastruture, when we drove out to the family's house in the tuk tuks, there were no street lights at all adn it was pitch black all the way there along main roads.

We ate dinner in a traditional stilt house, sitting on the floor of the main room in the house. The family explained that there are 9 people living in the house which had about 3 rooms in total. The 9 people were brother, wife, sister, husband and thier kids.

We ate by torch light and the food was absolutley delicious. They cook with more subtle flavours here - similar to Thai food but replacing the chili with herbs. The national dish is called Fish Amok which is a curry made with coconut milk and herbs.

We left the family at around 8pm as they all go to bed at this time - there being little else to do with no electricity. We then travelled back to the hotel adn drank cans of beer overlooking the Mekong River. My cans had a pull key top like in the '80s - took me right back to kiddy birthday parties and '80s coke cans!!