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Published: August 7th 2007
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Day 110
Packing up and having another lazy morning on the beach broken only by a trip to the bar to order food and Chrissie getting a beautiful (and bargain) manicure and pedicure, we hopped onto a moto to the bus station. A bus ride later, made shorter by us both falling asleep, we disembarked to a scrum of touts for hotels trying desperately to insert the cards for their hotels into our nostrils. A bit discombobulated from just waking up we told them all to go away for a minute for us to decide which one to go to. They weren't too keen to do this but we finally chose a cheap ($3) but comfortable enough option for the next couple of nights.
We went out to explore the town which was a much smaller and less touristy affair than we'd expected, we had a great time seeing what small town life was like before we were treated to a brilliant double rainbow and one of the most vivid yellowy sunsets we had ever seen. It was a really nice afternoon but returning back to the hotel Chrissie wasn't feeling very good and opted for no dinner and
an early night.
Day 111
Chrissie was thankfully feeling marginally better in the morning as we clambered aboard a 4x4 for a trip to Bokor National Park and the Bokor Hill Station which was deserted a number of years ago.
Meeting our fellow tour companions we sped on the back of our transport for the day toward the Park. On entering the park the road turned from smooth(ish) tarmac to broken rocks and a very uneven track. It was a wild 2 hour ride climbing the hill into the park before we had our first stop at King Sihanouk's summer home and guard post. Now just a shell having been abandoned during the war and genocide that ravaged the country, it was interesting to see what would have been a modestly sized retreat for the King. Whilst we were there the clouds rolled in, the thunder cracked overhead and it started to rain.
Unperturbed as we were securely clad in our wet weather gear we continued in the 4x4 where we reached the end of the road and a trek through the park to a waterfall. We had a great walk taking us across some rivers
(rather swollen due to the rain) over boulders and through some of the low level brush in the park.
Arriving at the waterfall, it was an amazing sight wth a raging torrent of water thundering over the lip. Our guide then took us over the rocks and behind the waterfall itself where there was a solid wall of water falling only feet from where we were walking - it was amazing.
Back to the car and we were headed for lunch at a very wet and cold ranger station before we were off to see the deserted hill town of Bokor. The first stop was the towns Casino and hotel. We arrived under a shroud of mist (we were now in the cloud) and this eery looking shell of a building looked like something straight out of a horror film. We were able to explore the 4 floors with the guide pointing out the key areas keeping an eye out for ghosts or any of the nasty things you see in horror films!
Making it out unscathed, we drove a short way down the road and stopped. Looking around us we were not sure why. After a
confused couple of seconds there was a slight clear in the mist and the towns church loomed from out óf the mist along its driveway. This was a scene that typified any horror film we have seen, and it was an opportunity too good to miss. Linking up with Marc (a fellow tour member who offered to be camera man) we pulled together a fantastic short film. Pleased that we had our first filmography masterpiece under our belt, we were back on the 4x4 for the journey back to Kampot. Somehow this turned out to be even more bumpy and precarious than the journey up, but hanging on for dear life albeit a little battered and bruised we made it back.
We popped out to a local internet cafe and left at around 9pm in search of some dinner to find that in sleepy Kampot nothing was open! We managed to find a baguette stall and went back to the hotel to find that it was all closed up for the night! Thankfully they let us in and we sat in bed munching our exotic dinner!
(the original entry had our horror movie attached - we will try
to put it back on for you to see if we can find it on our camera cards)
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Cat & Pete
non-member comment
So good to have you back ...
Lovely to hear from you. One request when your write Day .... could you also put the date so I can picture when exactly you were where (bossy older sister rant over ...). I take it I can catch up with the short film on Facebook? PC Whats 'discombobulated'???? Cx