Dirt-biking - 2nd stop Kampot, 3rd stop Bokor NP
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2006
1
61
75
Trip End
May 17, 2007
Kampot and Bokor Nation Park (Hill Station),
Cambodia
Friday, March 23, 2007
Kampot itself has got a really chilled out vibe, especially my guesthouse Blissful GH. It's a coo little place with good communa areas. The bad weather made me make the most of these spaces, watching 4 films - Friends With Money, Anchorman, Derail, and Babel. Most peope stay here to use it to visit places such as Kep and Bokor. Since I've been to Kep, the plan was to head up to Bokor after a good nights rest.
I managed to convince his guy Jim to hire a bike to go up to Bokor too, which was cool. Bokor is an old hill station that was built by the French as a retreat. However, it is a ghost town now, as the resort was left twice due to different wars taking place. The road up to the town is about 40km arounda winding hill 'road'. I use the term loosely though, as it is just rubble as a result of bombs and lack of maintenance. That made for an awesome time on the dirt-bikes, racing our way over rough terrain. It was one of the best things I've done whilst travelling! It beats a ropey old jeep taking you up. Plus we had the luxury of staying overnight in the Training Centre giving us more time to explore a waterfall with not much water (dry season), and the old ruins, the most impressive being the Bokor Palace Hotel. Whilst we were there, a helicopter landed, dropping off a CNN crew who were in Bokor to film local leopard cats, NOT the snakes, tigers, elephants, bears and monkeys.
The hill-statin is pretty limited s we had to make do with 2 pot noodle-type things and some biscuits.
Bokor Palalace Hotel
The weather wasn't great either, so we had to watch the clouds literally go p[ast us. Pretty cool actually. After sleeping for the night, we got up and ragged it back down the hill, with a few stopsas Jim fell off the bike twice due to driving too slow on the rocky roads. The trick is to keep the speed up, so the rocks can't move under you too much!Anyway, I'm back in Kampot, after delaying going to Sihanoukville. I'm not that fussed about going there as I heard it is seedy and full of paedos. If that's the case I'd just get angry being there. Plus the weather isn't great, so I'm not sure its worth staying at a beach for 3 days seeing as I leave Cambodia on the 30th for Malaysia. Basically I don't know what to do now - something will sort itself out soon enough...
Comments
Sihanoukville
From the sounds of it Sihanoukville is the place to be, don't waste anymore time helping orphans!!