---

Bokor was made a park in 1993, so it's still a new part of the budding national park system here. Anisa has wanted to visit it for quite some time and it's a common day trip out of Kampot, so we decided to give it a shot. I'll admit the road was rougher than I had expected, and sitting was out of the question that evening, but it was beautiful up there. The humidity and even the heat droped away as we climed up the "mountain". It might be a hill in Idaho, but compared to the rice paddies around it looks like a mountain even to me. We saw lots of remains of French colonialism and former palaces of the Cambodian Royalty. The place hasn't just been discovered, Cambodians have always known that it is gorgeous up there. There are bears and tigers and such in the park, but you really have to stay up at the ranger station for some time before you get lucky enough to see large mammals. Because of my tummy issues and the comfort of our hotel in town we decided to go up for just a day. [My stomach problems have passed for now and I'm feeling a lot better.] We rode up to the park on 220cc dirt bikes. I'm glad Anisa voted for hiring bikes with drivers, I can hardly believe they offered to rent the bikes to us to drive. considering that road we wouldn't have made it very far. From the back of the moto I could at least look around as we drove, though I was very uncomfortable and am still sore. The butterflies made the first impression on me, they were everywhere, in all colors and most were huge. Looking up at the trees sometimes it seemed they had more butterflies than leaves above the canopy in the sun. It was an amazing place, up at the top made almost eerie by the clouds that blew up over the ridge from the ocean down below.

---