I left Sihanoukville at 8am yesterday and arrived in Kampot shortly before 10am, so it was a nice and short journey, although rather oddly the sex tourist and his hooker were also on the minibus! I had learnt from my mistakes in Sihanoukville and on Tuesday I rang ahead to a guesthouse in Kampot and reserved a room for 2 nights, getting it for more than half the price I'd paid in Sihanoukville. After dropping off my bags I started walking around the town, and found it very different to the previous places I have been to in Cambodia. The old French influence is very easily identified in the architecture here and along the river side. I had a late and very breakfast at a quaint Khmer cafe - iced coffee, lime juice and pancakes for $2! I spent the afternoon walking around and then sat by the river reading for a while. The streets were pretty hard to navigate and I ended up going back on myself several times, but I didn't get majorly lost. One very nice shop I came across was 'Tiny Kampot Pillows' where they made pillows of all sizes. I bought a lovely travel sized one in the Cambodian traditional krama fabric for only $2 so I went away very happy. Later in the afternoon I sat outside the Kampot Music and Dance school waiting for a perfomance, but a crazy bag lady came up to me and started talking in Khmer. She was obviously crazy and I tried to make it clear I didn't want to talk to her but she started being very inappropriate and as I moved away she followed me and hit me with her black bin bag of rubbish. I decided that watching a music and dance show wasn't worth being attacked by a crazy lady so I went back to my guesthouse for the evening.

Today I went on a guided tour to Bokor National Park a few kilometres outside of Kampot town. Although our bus was already full to capacity, once we got to the ranger station more people were squeezed in, and our minbus for 14 ended up carrying 20. The first item on the agenda was a jungle trek up half of the mountain. When it said "jungle trek" I was expecting something light and easy that was catered towards tourist, but in reality it was a decent hard hike up a steep hill! An hour and half of it was definitely enough, and my legs are going to be seriously sore tomorrow! When we got to the end of the trek we were taken by minubus further up the mountain to Bokor Hill Station and were dropped off outside the old French Casino Hotel. It is over 80 years old and looking a bit worse for wear, but other than that it is such an impressive building and must have been amazing during its golden age. The plateau was occupied by the French during the 1920's and over the course of a decade built the grand casino hotel, a Catholic church and much more. The guide said that two more casino hotels were built later on as this one was so close to the cliff edge that gamblers who had had bad luck were prone to throw themselves off the edge, but how much this is true I cane only guess. The plateau has since been bought by Sohka Company and they are planning to build a new luxury resort with many hotels and attractions. Despite signs that said we were not to enter, we were all allowed to walk throughout the hotel and the surrounding buildings. After the casino hotel I walked to the King's residence, a cheery yellow building, and then the old Catholic Church. It was a Khmer Rouge hideout during war with the Vietnamese, and as such has bullet holes in the wall which is quite alarming. From there we were brought back to the jungle trail and trekked down the hill, and although this was quicker it was not necessarily easier as it was steep and vines continuously tripped us up. We were picked up by the minibus for a final time and taken to the riverside in Kampot were we boarded boats for a sunset cruise. This was nice, but I've been on a lot of similar ones in Cambodia, so pardon the pun, it was nothing to write home about.