Many tourist sites are intriguing enough to bear repeated visits. Especially when you have a chance to explore them with someone who hasn’t seen them before. And sometimes you even notice things you overlooked during previous excursions. Such was the case on our next hike up the mountain in Phnom Sampov.

Sunrise, Summon the Bats

The day began very early, at least for Kimberly and her ubiquitous camera. Knowing that the hordes of bats streaming out of their cave every day at sunset had to get back into their cave before they could stream out again, she got up just before dawn and hiked to a spot where she could view them — and photograph them — after they returned home from a night’s carousing.

She also was able to get more glimpses of early morning village life, which is always an awe-inspiring treat for us.

Lunch, as usual, was in the restaurant around the corner, where the school picks up the tab. As we’ve mentioned, the kitchen staff there are not accustomed to dealing with vegetarians, so they often made some interesting experiments with vegetables. But this day’s entree absolutely took the proverbial cake. The primary “vegetable” in the dish was… pineapple. In fact, the dish consisted entirely of pineapple, green onions and some kind of sauce. It was actually not bad, but… pineapple???

Hiking Phnom Sampov

Then we returned to the mountain, this time with our new fellow volunteers, Diego (from Argentina) and Aurelia (from Italy). We showed them the “killing cave”, complete with its pile of skulls (of victims murdered during the Khmer Rouge genocide) on display in a glass case. Fortunately, none of us bumped our own skull on the low-hanging rocks, as one gentleman did, to end up with a bloodied head.

Portraits of Monkeys

Naturally the monkeys were out in force as usual, and we all got a kick out of watching them, though the locals pretty much seem to take them for granted — when not getting downright annoyed with them.

We also examined the pagodas again, and this time we discovered something that we had not noticed earlier. Tucked away between pagodas, and partially concealed by the boulders around it, was a long descending staircase. At the bottom of it was a grotto that was clearly used for religious rituals.

The Hidden Grotto

A pair of statues stood guard at the bottom of the steps, either welcoming visitors or trying to shoo them away. There were several covert little nooks and crannies which served as makeshift shrines. Clearly, devotees had been using them to burn incense and candles, pray, meditate, or do various forms of paying respects. This was truly a bewitching place; and discovering it was a reminder to be on the lookout for concealed gems, even in locations we’ve already visited before.

Speaking of which, we of course capped off the day with another viewing of the massive bat flight at twilight, a spectacle that never seems to get old. For Kimberly, it was full circle: she observed their homecoming, and then their departure into the night once more.

2/4/2023