After 4 days in Sihanoukville, Amie finally convinced me to leave, and without a single property I might add. "We can always come back later," she reasoned, so we headed off with 2 Dutch girls to Kampot. Kampot was formerly a French town and is situated on the river. It has a lot of big old mansions with beautiful views, especially of the sunset. We were only using Kampot as a base to explore nearby Bokor Hill, another French town used as a hot weather getaway as it is located at over 3000 feet. Bokor Hill is nice but it's just a jungle with a few scattered ruins and it's a long way to ride up a bumpy road sitting in the back of a pickup truck. It was a tough journey and my arse has yet to recover. Unfortunately the day before I had gone for a massage and it was all for naught as the ride undid any good I had gotten from that.

Kampot is probably worth a visit but I think I would give Bokor a miss unless it's the wet season and the "waterfall" actually has water. Kampot had a nice variety of restaurants and the people were so friendly that they walk with you and pepper you with questions just to practice their English. One night there were 7 teenaged boys on bikes surrounding Amie and I as we walked back from a restaurant asking us questions in English and teaching us a little Khmer. One guy was a little disappointed that we did not speak Chinese as he opted for Chinese in school instead of English.

After 2 days in Kampot and no real reason to hang around we headed for Phnom Penh. We were too lazy to get up for the 7 am bus so we had to get a share taxi but we got tired of waiting for it to fill up we rented the whole back seat. (Normally they squeeze 4 in the back and 2 in the passenger seat but those are Cambodians not Westerners). They mainly drive on the right side of the road but the steering wheel can be on either side depending on from where the car was imported. Sometimes they drive on the left, especially if they are about to make a left turn and traffic is busy or while they're merging. Crossing the street here is a new adventure too. The best way to do it to just walk across at a steady pace regardless of traffic; the drivers take your presence into account and somehow manage not to hit you (usually).

We arrived in Phnom Penh and were taken to a guesthouse called Same, Same But Different (Same, Same But Worst would have been a better description). The room was cramped and had the overall feeling of a tin of sardines but the restaurant was right on the lake and supposedly had great sunsets. So we ordered a large jug of beer and settled down in front of the lake, the sunset was either not great or else the beer made our vision hazy but regardless, I was not that impressed as I had heard a lot of talk about how good the view was. We didn't really find much to love in Phnom Pehn so we moved on to Siem Reap after just one night and are going to take in the ruins at Angkor Wat later this week.