Kampot: Bungaloes, The Cham People, and Inspirational Students

It had already been a long day. Tearful goodbyes and NHCC were followed by a long van ride. I’d been in the back, crammed tightly in with bags, my neighbor J, didn’t have enough room for her legs, so we were sharing leg space. I’ve never been one to dislike road trips, but this one tried my patience. I didn’t really know what awaited us where we were going, and leaving NHCC had been one of the harder goodbyes of the trip so far.

An hour or two into the drive, T, the group’s resident DJ, thought it might be a good idea to listen to The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, seeing as we were soon to enter Vietnam. Listening to O’Brien’s poetic descriptions while staring out the window and what little of Cambodia I could see from the road, the reality of my geographic location suddenly hit me.

Throughout my life the word Vietnam had always been present, whispered here and there, dripping from people’s tongues with a certain weight. The word itself never referred to a modern day country, but of a different sort of place, on of bitterness and disillusion, one of loss and death and endless meaningless, one of protests, of upheaval. And then at some point, I learned that the whispered “Vietnam” referred to a war that was never a war, and I learned more about the confusing, murky thing that is the Vietnam War.

Sitting there in that van, it suddenly occurred to me, like it had before in these suddenly clear moments, that I was in Cambodia. That I was on the other side of the world from where I’d always been, that around me was a land that had seen a different history, fostered a different culture, listened to different languages.

And I was in the part of the world that was the other half of the Vietnam war story.

So, I was in the van, thinking very hard about where I was, when I arrived in Kampot.

I loved it immediately. Compared to every other city I’d been in, this place was empty. There were hardly any cars on the street, no one asked insistently if I wanted a tuk tuk, and I could smell the ocean. We were close to the sea. The Kampot river flowed through the down and a couple of kilometers later dumbed into the gulf of Thailand. The air was different here, brighter, brisker, the sort of air that makes you feel cleaner.

Little did I know what would be in store for me there.

One boat ride down the gorgeous Kampot River later, we arrived at our accommodation for our time in Kampot. We’d be spending two days or so hanging out with an American expat A, who runs a stand up paddle board rental and tour service from her house. She’d arranged accommodation near to where she lives, as it’s pretty far out from the actual town of Kampot.

We’d be staying in a place called Eden. Recently opened up, this place is the closest thing to heaven on earth I’ve ever found. Several beautiful bungalows hovering over the river on stilts make up the guesthouse. It runs on solar power. The river laughs all the time. The staff make the best coffee I’ve ever tasted.

At Eden, I whiled away my time reading and writing, swimming across the river, watching boats pass by. At night I’d lay in a hammock under the stars, listening to haunting music playing through a set of speakers, or two a guitar.

One afternoon, I was sitting on a bungalow porch, feet dangling over the river, when suddenly a blast of Cambodian hip hop interrupted the quiet and a huge splash erupted from the river off to my left.  A second later a head popped up above the water. The man swam to the side of his bright blue fishing boat and pulled himself back up onto the deck. He was joined by two friends and they were talking and laughing loudly, jumping into the water.

One noticed me, waved and shouted hi. I waved back.

They had just woken up, I guessed. The fishing boats were clearly theirs, so I knew that in just a matter of hours they’d set off as the sun began to set. In this area, the river was completely fished out, so fishermen had moved to the sea. Around 4 o’clock every afternoon, all the boats motored downriver and met up in a great fleet, before setting off into the open water of the ocean to fish all night and return as the sun rose.

The other fascinating thing about Eden, was that it was built in a village of Cham people. An ethnic minority found throughout Southeast Asia. The Champ people are Muslim, setting them apart from the traditionally Buddhist society around them. It was fascinating to walk through their village. It looked like any other place in Cambodia, the only difference were the beautifully decorated headscarves worn by most of the women.

As I walked through the village, I was greeted from all sides. Children ran out of houses to wave, men and women called hellos to us from their shops. It was an extremely welcoming village. And their warmth made me fall in love a little bit with the area.

Beautiful bungaloes and kind neighbors aside, the most amazing part of Kampot was the group of young Cambodians I met through the connections A, the American expat, had built up during her years in Cambodia. While I met a handful of talented university students, three of them stood out. One, a few years out of university, was one of the heads of a school fifteen minutes out of Kampot. A Belgian woman who had noticed the need for a good, free school in that particular area, as the children and their families were too poor to afford to send them to school, had founded it. This young man was in charge when the Belgian was away, and he worked wonderfully with the students, really inspiring them to learn. He’d also been involved extensively in NGO’s researching the Khmer Rouge.

Another university graduate had received several scholarships to university. As a little girl she’d started a library in her own home, and although she was too poor to pay for school, her teacher recognized her passion and potential and taught her anyway. In university, she’d even been given the chance to study in the Czech Republic, an opportunity she took. Most Cambodian students who’d received that scholarship in the past never returned to Cambodia, going somewhere else where they’d get higher paying jobs. She did return, knowing that if all the young people left Cambodia, “Cambodia would stay Cambodia, and never get better.”

She and her brothers had since started a biking tour of Phnom Penh, focusing on a genuine cultural experience. She’s also just finished writing a book for a series by a Chinese publisher, about her story. 

Lastly, was this brilliant young woman’s brother. He was younger, our age, just started in university. He’s a brilliant people person. As we hung out, he was the life of the party, starting games, causing mischief, making people feel at ease. He was our guide as we paddled along the river, taking us through mangrove tunnels and past a hidden pagoda. Just as intelligent as his sister, he, too, works for a brighter future for Cambodia.

A few days later, I left Kampot with a heavy heart, wishing I could have spent more time with these intelligent and inspiring people. But knowing that their still in Cambodia, working with children and adults, inspiring them to clean up their country, is heartening. Things are slowly moving forward in that haunted country.