July 21st, 2014
Day 2 for the scooter gang
Well I may just have the bug now. When we woke up and saw that rain appeared unlikely, we decided to go ahead and rent bikes again! We wanted to go up to Bokor Mountain. We heard it is a nice ride, great road with some nice curves and a couple cool things up there to see. We went to the same place as yesterday to rent the bikes since we didn’t get ripped off, it seemed like a good bet. Same drill as yesterday, just different bikes (both bone dry again). I think that must be how they make a little extra off the rental (let’s be honest–at $5 a day, no one is getting rich off these rentals). I think they take the bikes back at the end of the day and siphon off all the gas except for enough to start the bike and get it to a station. We noticed this with the car rental in Thailand too. That car was also given to us on fumes. Anyway, we went straight to the gas station and fueled up ($9 exactly again). It is still a good deal over taking a tour which would have cost us $26, and we would have been in a minibus on someone else’s schedule.
We went to the Ecran movie and noodle house for lunch as we had heard their fresh made noodles are very good! We had a serving of dumplings (12) and an order of fried noodles with chicken ($4.50 total) for one of the best lunches we have had! What a deal!
We stopped along the way and took pictures and enjoyed the view. It was clear for probably 75% of the way up! Then we got into the clouds and it got really cold, windy and wet. I’m not complaining…it was a nifty experience!
The were a lot of these signs as we went along. Makes me laugh because 10,000 riel is $2.50usd. Hahahhahahahahah I think the fine for littering at home is $100. But in all fairness, I did not see any trash! So maybe it is a deterrent.
At the top of Bokor mountain is an old abandoned Catholic Church, a Wat, an abandoned casino, and waterfalls. And if the clouds cooperate, then a view. So the clouds were very very heavy, so no view! We decided to bail on the abandoned casino bcz we (I) was too miserable and cold and the clouds were only getting worse. But we did get to see Lok Yeay Mao monument, the Popokvil waterfalls and Wat Sampove Pram (5 boats Wat).
The Wat was shrouded in cloud which made it very cool.
The interior of the Wat was all jazzed up like it was Las Vegas or some thing! We see a lot more mini-lights in temples here than in Thailand.
At this point, I cried Uncle and got out my emergency rain poncho. I was hoping the wafer thin plastic would keep me drier and hopefully trap some body heat in so I don’t get pneumonia! I have never been cold here….so this was first for me.
I don’t have any pictures of this stage….Troy probably does….maybe I’ll ask him for one (or maybe I’ll just try to forget it happened….by looking at Troy’s face watching me, I don’t think it was very flattering)
We made our way down the mountain when the temperature got back to normal….about halfway down….I scrapped my poncho and things got back to “normal”!
I was about 4:45pm when we got back to Kampot. We did a drive by of our favourite food places to see what the specials were….then back to hotel to freshen up and drop off our days bags. We ended up at the Rusty Keyhole 2 for our last supper in Kampot. Had the pizza (of course) and I remembered my camera this time.
Dominos eat your heart out!
Plus cheesy fries of course….seems like we might be carb loading for the big race….
I had a iced coffee with sweet milk for good measure too!
Then we had to go over to return the bikes….say good bye for now dear bikes….but the dessert WAS delicious 😉.
