25th October 2011
Our tuk-tuk driver took us from the pier to the caves of Phnom Sor (White mountain). It took the best part of an hour and was a spectacularly bumpy ride, even the smoothest of roads offered up back jarring, bottom numbing jolts. Before arriving at the foot of the mountain we were followed by a cheerful boy on his bike who told us that he knew the caves and wanted to practice his English, so when we pulled up at the foot of the mountain it was he and not the other kids who showed us around.
Wat Kirisan is a temple built at the bottom of the caves and due to be accompanied by more if the signs asking for help to construct more temples is anything to go by. I managed to be in a bad mood and followed Djalma and the boy a few paces behind, taking pictures and trying to ignore the other kids. The caves were dark but with the help of our failing torch and the boys mobile phone we saw the inside fairly well.
We strolled through a few caves, one said to look like the inside of a dragon (there was definite rib cage potential to be sure) and the others had stories too – I didn't catch most of it, trying to keep my bad mood to myself.
Out of one cave we emerged into the sunlight surrounded on all sides by the middle of the mountain, draped in vines and inhabited by monkeys.
We climbed up some Russian steps (Russian steps don't have an even height so if you're not careful you bang your toes or lose your balance) and into a small bat cave, I managed to get a photo of a bat but the quality of light was very poor.
Back down we looked at some more little shrines dotted along and about the caves, one of the tables for offerings was hosting a cheeky monkey who picked up and had an exploratory nibble at anything and everything on the table. Other monkeys, seeing us started to swing down in our direction, mindful of bites and a series of rabies shots we gave them a wide berth.
Djalma was counseled against climbing up the mountain to see the view from the top – apparently the track was too slippery so we gave the boy some money, got back into our tuk-tuk and carried on our way to the border with Vietnam.
The road was dusty as hell, we hid under sarong for the most part until bicycles carrying bundles of rice and children on their way home from school caught my eye. Our driver tried to fob us off onto some moto drivers but we were not in sight of the border crossing so we stayed put and he drove us on, I imagine considerably less happy to continue onto the agreed destination.
Once at the border we got off and started the arduous process of leaving the country. I DO NOT MISS CAMBODIAN BORDER OFFICIALS. Not one bit, greedy bastards. Actually the guys on the Cambodian side were pretty cool, they stamped us out, smiled and waved us on, the Vietnamese border guards were okay save for one guy who insisted on a dollar for an unnecessary medical form, he kept on smiling and repeating “one dollar” and we kept on smiling saying “no” in the end he waved us and we heard him and someone else laughing their socks off at a pair of such tight fisted travellers refusing to pay a dollar each.
On the other side the moto drivers we said no to before were waiting for us, after negotiating 2USD a head we jumped on the back and they took us to Ha Tien.
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