A Ride Along Prek Teuk Chou 🛥️ (Tidal River Rapids) Kampot, Cambodia 🌴

justinparke (67)in LifeStyle • 4 years ago

Feeling nostalgic and missing Cambodia, I wanted to share a ride along Prek Teuk Chou some co-workers and I took several years ago.

Prek Teuk Chou

Once upon a time I worked for a German agri-research business in Cambodia, where I taught English and also helped with translation and research and development. Our boss owned his own boat and often took on us adventures after work, something that definitely kept morale high.

This heart of Kampot is only around 8km from the sea, which is where departed heading upstream. The salinity decreases gradually as the river gets closer to the whitewater rapids and hydroelectric dam, a journey our boat wasn't fit to make.

My co-worker captaining the boat was a former nautical non-hallucinogenic mushroom smuggler, and he often took his own boat to sea in the middle of the night to meet Vietnamese traders on the open water for tax-free trading in legally gray waters.

The boats we passed along the way were local fisherman headed out to sea for a night of fishing, very busy prepping the nets and equipment before nightfall encroached.

We were simply out for a joyride, and traveled around 45 minutes upstream, made a small impromptu picnic in boat, and then turned around to head back to town.

Nightfall came before we arrived back in town, but despite how dark the pictures appear, visibility was still good enough for easy navigation.

Arriving back into the relative hustle and bustle of tiny little Kampot, I quickly realized how important it is to get away for some fresh air now and then, and I absolutely miss small adventures like this. We are now currently stranded in Suriname nearly two years already, partially due to COVID-19.

The icing on the cake was the random sms I got from my cell phone service provider as arrived back in town. This is just another reason I miss Cambodia, the perfect blend of humor and adventure.