I had been planning to go to Kampot with Top Banana on Sunday, getting up incredibly early and just making it a day trip. But when I got up Saturday morning, TB asked if it would be ok if we went that afternoon and spent a night there instead of trying to do it all in one day. Since I had no real plans that worked well for me. So I spent the morning hanging out at the guesthouse, saying goodbye to some of the people staying there (they were leaving that day also for Sihnoukville). At 1 we piled into TB's little car - me, Top Banana, and Aya - Top Banana's girlfriend. What a drive! Kampot's only about 150km south of Phnom Penh but the drive took about 4 hours. This road used to be paved but is now just a series of ditches. Truly amazing that this little car made it...

But we did eventually get to Kampot and found a place to sleep. I wasn't feeling too well (what's a little food poisoning anyway?) so I really just went to sleep. Well... actually... my room had a tv so I watched a movie and then went to sleep. The next morning we got up bright and early to grab some breakfast (food poisoning all over) and then headed up Bokor Hill. The original plan was to take TB's car up but we were advised against this and ended up getting seats on a 4x4 for the day. Strangely enough it was actually fun sitting on the back of a truck in the rain going up a mountain on another crappy road. Bokor Hill is about 15km from Kampot. The king used to have a mountain retreat up there and in the early 1900s it was a big resort area. There was a hotel, casino, church, etc. It all fell into disrepair after the French left Cambodia (1953 I think) and then at the fall of the Khmer Rouge it was the sight of a pretty big battle. The Khmer Rouge were holed up in the church and the Vietnamese were in the hotel. So now what's left is some pretty impressive buildings that are falling apart. And of course you can climb all over them to your heart's delight. Which we did. It was pretty foggy that day (the rain eventually stopped) so it was actually really creepy walking around. For those brave enough, you can spend the night at the ranger station on the hill as well. But I was actually freezing cold by the end of the day - don't think I'd be able to manage a night there with no heat.

After spending the day on the mountain, it felt good to come back down and be hot again. We left soon after returning to Kampot to tackle the road to Phnom Penh again. This time, since I wasn't sick, Top Banana took the road really fast (shaved an hour off the time) but did manage to blow out a tire on one of the many ditches. Aya wasn't too pleased with him....