Yesterday we took a day trip to Kampot - an old French colonnial town near the south coast of Cambodia about an hour and a half drive east from Sihanoukville. The journey was exciting - another freezing cold air-conditioned bus. Lots of swerving to avoid hitting dogs, cattle and overtaking traffic. Great views of river villages,mountains and impossibly overloaded vans and bikes on the way. Kampot seemed almost devoid of westerners in this the low-season. It was a bustling market town, overlooking the mountains of the Bokor national park set on a pretty (albeit very polluted) river. There are some remnants of the French colonnial buildings and a small piece of the bridge is original colonnial style, although life appears to have now moved away from the French riverfront deeper inland. Kampot is best known for its fabulous tasting pungent pepper - we have loved our salt and Kampot pepper squid recently. We enjoyed a french breakfast in a riverside hotel banana crepes for Paul and jam on toast for me. Then had a walk around town. The market was yet another chance for me to gag at the smells. It had troughs running along the aisles filled with detritus, and as ever the fish and meat stalls were an eye-opener. Paul manages to make them look so beautiful in his photos. Outside the people returning from market loaded up their vans, they were overspilling with produce and people. Another bit of excitement (seemingly for the locals too) was the elephant visiting the town. People were paying to walk underneath it - good luck apparently. The tour company had arranged a taxi for our journey back, Paul and I squeezed on the backseat with two young local men...very cozy, but no seatbelts. The rain thundered down on the way back and we passed a minibus overturned in a ditch with a crowd gathered round it, then a mini-bus with its wheel off with a woman with a head-injury about 50m behind it...we survived the journey....