Hi we’re in Kampot, Cambodia and I’m going to talk about the eco-ness at Champa Lodge.
Here is plants growing in plastic bottles which is eco.
This swing is special because you can stand on it and you can go far.
This boat is an example of reusing.
I like it here because there are three dogs Chica, Chico and Carrot.
Yesterday we went to Bo Tree Pepper Farm near Kampot, Cambodia. We took a tuk-tuk there but it was not a very comfortable ride because the dirt road had so many bumps and potholes. But it had nice scenery. When we finally arrived we were assigned a guide. Our guide was named Teddy, he was on Work Away. Work Away is a program where you do work for someone like build a fence or take care of a child and that person gives you free room and board. Teddy volunteered to be a tour guide at a pepper farm. First, Teddy gave us different kinds of pepper to taste, regular black, Kampot red, Kampot white, and Kampot black. My favourite was the Kampot red, Kampot black was too spicy. Then he took us around the farm to show us the process of making pepper. First we saw the pepper vines, the vines were grown around small brick towers that supported them. But Teddy said that they now use wood poles for the vines because apparently it helps the plant grow more “berries” and they wanted to use organic material. Each little stem was filled with little pepper “berries”. Black pepper was made from green pepper “berries” red was made from red “berries” and white was made from red with the skin peeled off. You can see the “berries in picture No. 3.
This is a bunch of peppers drying, almost ready to be boiled and made into pepper.
These are Red Pippali peppers, I did not try these because they were supposed to be very spicy. Here you can see the cycle except red. Green, yellow, green, darker green, red. They are ripe when they turn red.
This is me walking behind Teddy through rows and rows of pepper plants. After we took the tour we went swimming, it was awesome!! We also had lunch there, we had Amok, a Khmer dish with fish, and pineapple beef. It had a lot of pepper. It was scrumptious. Then we bought some red and white pepper for a souvenir. It was an awesome day at Bo Tree pepper farm.
Jess: Our huge day visiting the temples of Angkor was too immense of an experience for just one of us to report on so Evan and I decided to co-author this post. We hope to do justice to our day and give you some interesting historical facts as we go. To begin with Angkor means city and Wat means temple so the literal translation for the first temple we visited is “City Temple”.
Evan: Our plan was to go to Angkor Wat for sunrise which meant we had to wake up at 4:30 am. We took a tuk-tuk to Angkor and followed the huge crowds through the dark to get to a sunrise viewing location. Unfortunately, it was cloudy so the sunrise was not as stunning as we hoped for. There were so many tourists (especially from China), probably because it was around Chinese New Year.
Jess: Angkor Wat is a temple mountain with 5 peaks. They say it was probably based on Mount Meru. As wikipedia tells us, “Mount Meru is the sacred five-peaked mountain of Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist cosmology and is considered to be the center of all the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universes”. We can agree that it is definitely awe inspiring. We can only imagine how French entomologist Henri Mouhot felt when he was trekking through the jungle in the mid-1800s looking for insect species and came across one of the world’s most sophisticated ancient cities.
Evan: Constructing Angkor took approximately 40 years, to compare that, building the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris took 182 years. Angkor Wat was constructed during the reign of Suryavarman II, (by the way spell check tells me I should change his name to Superman), a conquering king who was in power from 1113 AD to 1150 AD. All around Angkor there are galleries of wall mural carvings that tell stories of battles and myth. This mural shows the rewards of the 37 heavens and punishments of the 32 hells. This picture shows hell at its worst!
Jess: The intricate stone carvings were one of the most impressive aspects of Angkor Wat. Every column, moulding, window frame, temple entrance and wall featured ornate detail that would have taken weeks to complete. Today no such attention to detail goes into the construction of our cities. This was put into some context when we learned that the great builder kings of this time were revered as living gods and in fact relied heavily on slavery to complete their grand visions. A very tiered society that was controlled by the monarch with a strong hand produced this epic architecture. This picture shows “devatas”, the female goddesses, of which there are almost 2000 all over Angkor Wat.
Evan: After we had our amazing adventure at Angkor Wat, we moved on to another ancient city, Angkor Thom, (Thom means big so Angkor Thom means “big city”). Angkor Thom used to have a population of 1,000,000 people. It included many temples, the first one we went to was called Bayon. Bayon has 54 towers and 216 smiling faces. In the 13th century Angkor Thom was the capital of the Khmer empire. We know so much about Angkor due to a Chinese ambassador named Zhou Daguan who visited the Khmer Empire at this time and kept a detailed journal. Some of his journal was fact while some was fantasy. For example Daguan said that Angkor was a big sophisticated city, which archaeologists later discovered to be true by analyzing NASA radar data that revealed many more archaeological sites than previously found. But Daguan also boasted that Angkor Thom was built in one day by a wise Chinese Emperor.
Jess: To put some of this in the context of our day, we arrived at Bayon at 8am after 3 hours of dawn exploring. It was already packed with people but despite the tourist crowds (which of course we also contributed to) it was still possible to find a quiet, shady corner and admire the magical pulse of this place. Bayon was probably my favourite temple due to the smiling faces that reminded me of the Olmec heads Dan and I saw years ago in Mexico. Bayon was commissioned by the great builder King Jayavarman VII. He was a buddhist king who managed to convert all of the Khmer Empire from Hinduism to Buddhism during his reign. He was described as very charismatic and we assume also somewhat arrogant as it is said that the smiling faces depict Avalokiteshvara, the goddess of compassion, but also look suspiciously of King Jayavarman himself!
Evan: This is Denise standing in front of some more devatas at Bayon. One of the coolest things about Jayavarman the 7th was that he created a very sophisticated canal system through Angkor Thom. Angkor fell when the Thai Kingdom invaded. The Thais took many people prisoner and the canal system required a lot of maintenance and after most people were taken it just kind of collapsed. In December 1997, NASA did a vegetation scan and saw a canal and a road intersecting, they were very confused. Then an archaeologist started digging where the scan showed the intersection and found a very sophisticated system that allowed them to intersect. On one side of the road the canal was dug slightly deeper than the other, and on the road there were gutters. So the water would flow into the gutters and not flood the roads.
Jess: This is the view from the top of Baphuon. The climbs to the temple towers are super steep, so steep in fact that they do not let children under 12 climb most of them (naturally we took some issue with that). We heard that they were built this way so that when they were ascended it forced people to be on their knees as though they were bowing to the Gods. Archaeologists believe this temple was the most impressive of the Angkor temples back in the day, but it was built on a soft foundation of sandy soil and hasn’t stood the test of time in comparison to other structures so it wasn’t our favourite stop. However, for lucky me who did climb up it was pretty cool to stand at the top and look out over Angkor Thom and imagine the thriving city in action 800 years ago.
Evan: But fortunately at Ta Keo they did let kids climb the stairs, me and my dad climbed up to the top. At the top there was a small shrine for buddha with flowers, candles, and incense. It was pretty hard on the way down, I got a little nervous. Ta Keo was possibly the first temple made entirely of sandstone in Siem Reap. Our tuk-tuk driver Te drove us from temple to temple and recommended a lunch place across from Ta Keo. I got fried rice with chicken which was really yummy.
Jess: Our final stop was at Ta Prohm, possibly my favourite temple as it has been infiltrated by the surrounding jungle. Green moss grows on the stone walls and it has a truly peaceful feel. It was constructed in the late 1100’s as a monastery and a university. They found inscribed stele (stone slabs) there that gave insight into the size and scale of the Khmer empire at the time– apparently 80 000 people from 3000 villages served this temple and there were 102 hospitals across the kingdom. It’s mind boggling to think that so much effort went into creating this architectural marvel just for it to be totally deserted due to political change at the time.
Evan: This is my mom and Denise in a big tree at Ta Prohm temple. Ta Prohm was made more known when the movie Tomb Raider came out. The archaeologist in the movie, Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) was exploring it in one scene. Ta Prohm was cool because it was very overgrown by trees and jungle. Somewhere in Ta Prohm there is a carving of a stegosaurus, some think it is just a hoax while others believe that the Khmer had knowledge of dinosaurs. What do you think? 
Jess: Okay, we are going a little out of order here but these last pictures are actually of sunset the night before we visited Angkor Wat. We bought our tickets at 5pm allowing us to head in for sunset and still use the passes the next day (a good tip garnered from reading other people’s travel blogs!). We spent the evening hours at Pre Rup. This temple was the oldest one we saw, dated back to 961 AD. I loved arriving for the first time at sunset. The light was perfect and gave our initial impressions a fairy tale type sensation where you could almost imagine walking back in time. Again, we were far from alone but you could stroll the vast grounds away from the crowds and take in the wonder of the experience!
Evan: It truly has been an awesome adventure in Siem Reap. I think I will remember this for the rest of my life.
Jess: Well said Evan! I couldn’t agree more and I was so glad to learn about and experience this World Heritage Site with you :). When we left at 2pm, I could hardly believe we had been exploring for 7 hours. You and Denise were true troopers.
Evan: Bye!!
The pools at Central Boutique Angkor Hotel were awesome! They were the perfect depth and were very pleasant to swim in. I liked the infinity element of them. Central Boutique Angkor Hotel was the only Boutique Hotel in Siem Reap with two swimming pools.
This was the first pool, it was shallower than the other pool. Unfortunately I only swam twice because I got a really bad cut on my knee and it hurt to put it in chlorine. It was the perfect depth for handstands. I loved pool No. 1. I would rate it an 8 out of 10.
Pool 2 was very fun to swim in. It had a platform at the end of it that was good for dives. It was pretty deep but I still loved it. I would also rate pool 2 an 8 out of 10.
This is Railay West Beach, a major tourist attraction. Twenty years ago, Railay West was just a little pristine beach that few people knew about, and now has resorts and brings tourists from all around the world. There are limestone cliffs that surround the beach and they are soooo beautiful. You can rock climb on them, I wanted to but we ran out of time. The sand is so soft and the beach is just plain stunning.
These are rocks and corals that I found on Railay West, I named some of them. the big coral on the bottom of the leaf is Big Jimmy and the one the top right corner with dots is Freckled Joe.
This is the sunset at Phranang beach in Railay. It was so beautiful and the next day we went back and me and my dad caught two little fishes in a cup. There was a hike to a viewpoint that my dad and Denise tried but did not succeed because it was a really really hard hike. Phranang Beach was awesome!
This is Denise getting buried in sand. 🙂
This is me getting buried in sand. 🙂
This is the motor of a longtail boat. It is called a longtail boat because out of the motor stretches a long stick with a propeller on the end that makes the boat go. We are taking this longtail from the shore to a ferry that will take us to Phuket. From Phuket we flew to Siem Reap and we have now begun our Cambodian adventure.
This is Lae Lay Restaurant at Railay Great View Resort, there is a big breakfast buffet that has so many choices! I really liked the pancakes, croissants, and the yoghurt. It was the biggest breakfast buffet I have ever seen in my life.
This is the buffet, all the nets have a different type of fruit. The fruits they had were passion fruit, watermelon, papaya, pineapple, and dragonfruit. I always had watermelon.
This was my breakfast on the last day in Railay. I had cereal and yoghurt, pancakes, french toast, a croissant, a sausage, watermelon, banana, cucumber, and OJ.
This is Denise eating her breakfast on the last day. She looked like she was really enjoying it. I do not think the Lae Lay buffet can be beat!
This is Chicken Satay I had for lunch at Lae Lay. Chicken Satay is practically chicken yakitori. Me and Denise have eaten it a lot of it in Thailand. Lae Lay Restaurant was great. The presentation was exquisite! I would rate the food at Lae Lay a 9 out of 10.
Our stay at Railay Great View Resort was very enjoyable. The bed was comfortable and the balcony had a very nice view. It had a huge breakfast buffet that had so many choices. I liked the pancakes at the buffet. The resort was very relaxing, a little bit pricey but reasonable. Railay consists of 3 beaches Railay East, Railay West, and Phranang Beach. Railay Great View was at the far end of Railay East, but we usually walked to Phranang or Railay West because they were more pristine then Railay East.
This is the King bed that me, mom and dad slept in for the first two nights. While Denise, mom, and dad slept in it for the second two nights. It was very comfortable and cozy.
This is the bed that Denise slept in for two nights and I slept in for two nights. It was not the comfiest but better then being squished with mom and dad in the king.
This is the bathroom, Railay Great View generously gave shampoo, bath soap, conditioner, and a hair dryer. On the last night, we saw a frog in the bathroom!
This is our balcony looking over Railay East Beach in the Andaman Sea. We saw a bunch of monkeys in the trees right outside our balcony. We were in room 34, the only downfall was hearing loud boats coming from towns around Railay like Ao Nang or Krabi.
This is the beautiful view from our balcony. It has been a great stay at Railay, I would rate Railay Great View Resort a 9 out of 10.
The pool at Railay Great View Resort was awesome! It was big and the perfect temperature. I did lengths of the pool. The best feature was the waterfall that came off the side of the pool, as you can see in picture 4. The pool had jets that were nice to relax with. I loved the Railay pool. I would rate it an 8 3/4 out of 10.
From Away 