Arrived in Sihanoukville

 After a good breakfast in the Diamond Hotel in Kampot, Tim, Anita, Mike and I walked along the river while our driver tied some of our bags on top of the vehicle.

 Beautiful blossoms in front of an old run down French colonial building in Kampot.

 We drove about 15 km up a new winding road to the top of what used to be known as Bokor Hill Station. In the 1920s the French built a weekend community at the top of Bokor Mountain to escape the heat. It is cool and windy up there at about 1,000 metres elevation. A group of Chinese investors is spending one billion dollars here. They've completely re-built the road and have built a beautiful casino, hotel and condominiums at the top, with more development to come. It was astounding to see such development at the top of this lonely mountain. Cambodia allows casinos while Vietnam and Thailand to either side do not. Developments like this are designed to attract Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and other Asian tourists. It's easy for baby boomers like us to assume that the world revolves around our Western desires but it doesn't. Western tourists are an afterthought here. There are a lot of Asian tourists who will want to come here.

 Here we are enjoying a snack in the casino lobby. Very impressive place and not too expensive. A room costs $65 per night and it's very much 5 star.

 The old French church on top of the mountain.

 Another old French colonial building. We thought it was abandoned but when we went inside we discovered that people were living there. Oops.

 We're staying at the Orchidee, a small hotel about 5 minutes walk from Ochhiteal Beach. The hotel is great, $30 per night including breakfast. When we first walked down to the beach, Ernie said what we were all thinking. "This is just like Wasaga Beach". There's about 2 or 3 km of this beach (along with many others) and about 1/4 of it near the west end is just crammed with beach bars and restaurants. It took a little getting used to but we settled in and had happy hour and dinner at the Purple Bar, owned by a Swedish guy named Lars. Here's Anita about to have a candlelit dinner right on the sand. Great food and only $10 total for our whole meal, including beer and tip.

 Anita walking along the other end of Ochhiteal Beach. It's very quiet and beautiful as soon as you get past the rowdy section. During the day we can enjoy the quiet beach and at night we have lots of places to go for happy hour and dinner.

 Anita in front of the busy section today. Shortly after this picture was taken, we met Tim and went walking around a rock point to look at another hotel. We had to climb up from the beach a bit and ended up walking through someone's backyard. Unfortunately, they had 4 dogs that jumped out at us and one bit Anita. The bite left her with a couple of puncture wounds and some bruising but she didn't need stitches. I scared the dogs away and the owner came out and apologized. Really, it was our fault for being on the wrong property. Anyway, we were concerned about rabies. We went down to the road, took a tuktuk back to our hotel and found out the name and location of a medical clinic. We picked up Anita's immunization records, her rabies vaccine information and some extra money, and took a tuktuk to the clinic.

 Here's Tim following our tuktuk to the medical clinic on his rented motorbike. In just a few minutes at the clinic, we were ushered in to see a doctor who spoke Khmer, French and English. He explained that since Anita had already been vaccinated she would only need two booster shots 3 days apart. Using her records, he made sure that the vaccine that he had was compatible (I checked too). A male nurse gave her the vaccination and cleaned her wound. Total cost: $10 for the doctor's consultation, $3 to get the wound cleaned and $20 for the vaccine which came in a package with a new syringe, all made in a laboratory in France. Problem solved. We don't think the dog was rabid but we're not taking any chances. Then we went back to the hotel and met Ernie for lunch.

While Anita and Tim ordered lunch at the Purple Bar, Ernie got a manicure and pedicure while enjoying a beer. Right now we're having a nap. At 4:30 we go back down to the beach to watch the sun set and then we'll all go out for dinner. Another couple of eventful days.