faulty towers

January 4th 2006. Martin had suggested we take the newly paved road to Kep instead of the main route 3. This turned out to be an excellent suggestion as the road passes close to the elephant mountains and the road was smooth with little traffic. We stopped in Kep, at the Veranda, for a bite to eat around 3pm. When we reached Kampot the staff at the hotel had been alerted to our visit and they gave us a quick tour. Dusty furniture was piled up with big metal signs and loads of trash in the foyer. The place smelled bad. The water wasn’t working (the pump needed replacing) so the rooms were not ready to stay in. We went off in search of a hotel. A helpful moto-dop lead us to all the hotels he gets commissions from. We ended up at the Boray Bokor II hotel. A fairly new four story place that had hot water and air con for $20/night. The rooms still managed to be shabby and the staff were less than helpful. The next morning I asked the front desk for some coffee, they said they didn’t have any, so I asked if there was someplace near-by to have breakfast. They replied that yes, there used to be a place right across the street but it closed a few months ago. Anyplace that’s open? They looked at each other and shrugged. We went back to the Bokor Mountain Club and went through it again with some of the old staff that were still on the FCC payroll; Mr Punsavaan, the accountant, Mr Kunsavaan, the night guard, Tula (the old bartender) and Vitu, the day guards. I made rough sketches of the rooms and what was missing or needed fixing and took photos. We asked Tula about the boat that the FCC supposedly owned and he replied that it was docked across the river. We decided to go look at it. He described the road to take and that it was a long open hull fishing boat painted light blue. We followed his directions, drove over the bridge and then turned left, over a smaller bridge. Every boat was painted light blue and there were dozens moored there. We took a quick look at a pagoda that overlooked the river then decided to drive out towards the entrance to Bokor Mountain National Park. We missed the turn off and were about a third of the way to Sihanoukville when we turned back. It was 5pm when we stopped back at the BMC. Rather than spend another disappointing night at the Boray we booked a night at the Champrey Inn in Kep (mainly because it had such a nice photo in the guidebook of its pool). We had an excellent meal, and a very engaging conversation with the proprietor, Nicolas. How do I put this diplomatically? I was engaging Nicolas in conversation about ancient Rome, global warming, satellite imagery, Khmer history, and boutique hotel management, while Eric was still contemplating how to react to the frenchman’s Khmer husband. Eric was polite in the end but he was conspicuous in his fishing for strategically useful information (land values, potential competitors in Kampot, government contacts, etc.).