Blogging Pubbitch

Kampot is a place of little charm and fewer attractions. There are two reasons to go there, and one of those is to head down to Kep, the nearby beach resort. The other reason is to provide an easy way to reach the Bokor Hill Station in the nearby national park, and the reason for going there has a lot to do with the country that Cambodia used to be.

Cambodia was once one of the most modern of the South East Asian nations. It had a rapidly expanding and effective infrastructure and was seen as a safe place to go; during the Vietnam War a large number of the journalists covering the fighting were based in Phnom Penh. It had also been a French colony and had a relatively successful tourist trade. The thing that Cambodia lacks is much coast, but it does have some nice scenery, and the plan was to turn the Bokor Hill Station into a thriving tourist trap. To this end, a large hotel and casino (amongst other buildings) were constructed.

All good things come to an end, and no sooner had the hotel been completed when tourism became the last thing on people's minds. As a result, there's now an eerie ghost town, with a slowly rotting, but very grand, hotel to see up in the hills, wreathed in mist on cold days and with a startling view to the sea on fine days.

When we arrived in town, the weather was doing its best to prevent anyone from seeing anything. Strong winds and constant rain that swung wildly between tropical downpours to invasive drizzle made walking around the town a miserable experience, and a landslide made access to the hill station a hazardous expedition --- so hazardous that one girl, thinking she could handle the dire road and powerful bikes needed to travel it, managed to break her hip when she overbalanced. The sheer vileness of the situation had forced the price of a trip up from 8 US dollars (including lunch) to 15 - 20 US dollars, excluding lunch but replete with colourful stories of hapless tourists breaking their hips.

Naturally, we overnighted, looked at the dismal weather in the morning and decided to head for Sihanoukville with a group of other travellers we had met in the hostel. There were 8 of us, so suitable transport was arranged the night before. Despite the others confidence that a large minibus would pull up, neither Holly or I were even slightly surprised when a Toyota Camry pulled up outside.