Kampot - Sunday 25th November

... well, we survived the full moon party (which mostly involved banana milkshake for us, after the previous night's cocktail shenanigans), and got up bright and early for our shared taxi to Kampot, two hours away. Six of us, plus bags, were sitting on a bench waiting for a lovely air-conditioned minivan to arrive... when an Orion-like battered saloon arrived on the guesthouse drive. We all looked at the car, each other, at our bags, and then at the car again. We were all fully grown western-sized people, and none of us were travelling particularly lightly... how then, did the taxi driver propose to fit all of us and our stuff into his car?

Cheerful people-origami was the answer! Dave and I 'shared' the front passenger seat, whilst the other four lucky travellers squished into the back. The boot was stuffed to overflowing with our bags, and those that didn't fit were shoved in the small air pockets that we were hoping would be saved for breathing room. As the poor car bulged, the driver forced all of the doors shut, cranked his Britney tape onto full, and we were away. No seatbelts, apparently no speed limit, and as we are now used to, no rules whatsoever regarding over or undertaking. We closed our eyes tight, gave in to flashbacks of India, and tried to ignore the cars zooming towards us in our lane with people sitting on bonnets and roofs or hanging out of windows at a zillion mph... although we couldn't tell exactly how fast we were going because the speedometer was broken...

Two hours later, we poured ourselves out of the car in Kampot and crawled with numb limbs to the guesthouse reception to arrange a room, before heading out to explore the town. Small and quiet, we admired the French Colonial style buildings, got lost and failed to find an ATM - we got some directions and headed back to the guesthouse for a quiet evening of playing cards and watching the Australian PM results on CNN.

The next morning, we arranged a tour of the Bokker Hill station, since it worked out at about half the price than us doing it ourselves and included lunch. We were picked up by two jeeps with about 30 people already squeezed on the backs - no handles, no cushions, no room; although we got lucky and shared the back of one of the cabs with the rice and curry supplies.

In the two hour drive to the top of the hill, we became increasingly glad that we'd secured a spot in the cab; to say that the road was bumpy was too mild a word - one foot drops were regular occurences, and most of the tarmac had been washed or bombed away - the road was only passable by hefty 4x4's. We saw a car try - tortuously slowly; and met a couple of people who'd blown up motorbike engines trying it the previous day... not that they were facing financial ruin though, since it only cost them $18 dollars to get them both fixed.

We arrived at the top of the hill and had a wander around the abandoned casino, which had all its fittings ripped out - think The Shining - and had some lunch on the hill (aforementioned vegetable curry and rice), and after enjoying a personal reindition of Westlife's song 'My Love' from our guide, he told us about how the Khmer Rouge had used the casino as a last stand in 1990 to shoot at the army troops who were hiding out in the Catholic church on the other side of the hill.

After having a look at the UFO shaped water tower and empty church, we emerged to find some Cambodian-style mechanics being forced upon the front suspension system of our jeep which had broken. The solution appeared to involve a lot of grunting and some rope - very hi-tech,and didn't work. We squished into the various jeeps of other tour groups who gave us a lift down the hill, although our jeep then got a flat tyre... our guide gave up and herded us down the hill for a 'surprise' jungle trek... great in flip-flops! After clambering through some busy jungle for an hour or so, we then walked down the hill for another hour, spotting a large squashed bright green snake on the way, waiting for a replacement jeep to arrive. We noted that jungle is surprisingly a lot like forest, except that everything is bigger and hotter.

All worn out after our impromptu jungle/hill trek, we arrived for our 'sunset cruise' on the river back to Kampot. Unfortunately, sunset was about an hour previously because of all of jeep trouble, so we had a slow 8km ride in the dark on a wooden boat back to town, dodging mosquitoes when we could. We felt relatively safe, apart from when the engine cut out and wouldn't start for a while, and also when we got near to the jetty and the boat driver started cursing and had to borrow a torch from someone to guide us in. Still, we arrived back safely, had an interesting day and got to see the hill station for next to nothing... time to leave Kampot for our second trip to Phnom Penh in the morning...