This week, our Cambodia embed, Tim Patterson, is giving us the inside scoop on the country, live from a guesthouse in Sihanoukville.

"Maybe the human catapult wasn’t the best idea," concedes Hugh, the frenetic young Australian who owns the Bodhi Villa outside Kampot.

"But man, just imagine how cool the catapult would’ve been! I put it right next to the yoga/meditation pavilion, see, because I figured people could get all chilled out and then finish their mediations by launching themselves into the river!"

The Bodhi Villa, located on a placid river near the town of Kampot, is the most ridiculous guesthouse in Cambodia. I love the place.

All About Kampot:
Many expats say Kampot is their favorite place in Cambodia. The peaceful riverside town four hours south of Phnom Penh has a chill vibe, and the proximity of mountainous Bokor National Park means Kampot is a great base for outdoor adventure.

Back in the colonial era, the French oversaw the construction of a luxury resort on the summit of Bokor Mountain, where they could escape the dry season heat. The hotel and neighboring chapel were the scene of raging battles during the war, and now the summit of Bokor, with its ruined buildings and perpetual fog, is one of eeriest places on earth.

The mountaintop resort is now being rebuilt, and the road to the summit is closed, but brave travelers can still trek to the top of the mountain and stay overnight at a ranger station–something I highly recommend.

Bodhi Villa:
Bodhi Villa is a few kilometers upstream from Kampot town, on the far side of the river. The main guesthouse building is a former Buddhist temple, overgrown with flowers, but most guests stay in bungalows on the riverbank. Some of the bungalows actually float on the river while tethered to shore. In dry season the river water is full of phosphorescence, and swimming off the porch of your bungalow at night is like diving into a whirling galaxy of light.

Hugh’s catapult was never fully functional, but the eccentric Australian has managed to complete a plethora of other projects, like a network of tree-houses where guests can eat, throw nuts at people swimming in the river and smoke more weed than I’ve ever seen in one place.

Maybe that’s why Bodhi is the sort of place travelers never quite manage to leave. It’s just too easy to chill out, order something delicious off the Munchies Menu, take a swim and watch Hugh embark on another one of his pipe dream catapult schemes.

If you’re tired of rugged travel and looking to relax for a few days–or a few weeks–Bodhi is the place to go. Just don’t forget about the rest of Cambodia while blissfully floating in the river.

Part of Wal-Mart’s continuing effort to update its once-dowdy image, the new logo for signs and building facades includes white letters on a burnt-orange background followed by a white starburst, according to an artist’s rendering that the company filed recently with planning officials in Memphis, Tenn.

In a change, the name will appear as one word: Walmart. When the company first started in 1962, the name was hyphenated by a dash. But in the past decade, the dash has been replaced by a star on stores and the corporate letterhead.

Carlson Consulting Engineers

Initially, the store logo included white letters on a brown brick exterior. About 20 years ago, Wal-Mart moved to a sign that affixed white letters onto a battleship blue/gray background, bordered by red strips.

Wal-Mart hasn’t officially unveiled the new design, and the company didn’t return repeated calls for comment.

The new white-and-orange logo came to light when it was used for a new store prototype proposed last week for a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Shelby County outside Memphis.

Chip Saliba, a manager with the Memphis/Shelby County office of planning and development, said engineers for the company told him that this was the new sign package that the company is unveiling soon. Casey Wilder, an engineer at Carlson Consulting Engineers Inc. in Bartlett, Tenn., confirmed the conversation.

"They have had the most dull, boring signs for 30 years," Mr. Saliba said. "The new one is kind of funky looking, but I like it," he added.

Dennis Alpert, senior manager of public affairs and government relations for Wal-Mart in Tennessee, referred calls to Wal-Mart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. But the Memphis Business Journal reported Thursday that Mr. Alpert said Wal-Mart’s new corporate logo would be officially unveiled this coming week.

On the bottom of graphics accompanying the Wal-Mart application, the corporate logo is written in blue letters followed by an orange starburst.

The store signs on Wal-Mart’s approximately 3,600 existing U.S. stores won’t be taken down wholesale, but they will be changed over time, says a person close to the company.

Wal-Mart’s new starburst logo mimics the cleaner, brighter sign of competitor Target Corp., with its iconic red-and-white bull’s-eye.

Wal-Mart has attempted in several ways to update its image in recent years. Gone from almost all its signage is the once-ubiquitous yellow smiley face.

Last year, Wal-Mart also changed its corporate uniform for store workers, retiring bulky blue polyester vests in favor of khakis and polo shirts similar to those favored by Target and other retail chains.

In the past decade, as Wal-Mart ramped up store growth and moved from rural areas into suburban and urban markets, it encountered increasing opposition from neighborhood groups and city planners who objected to what they contended was the uniformly ugly look and size of the stores, which averaged about 200,000 square feet.

In recent years, Wal-Mart has tried to assuage neighborhood groups, making concessions on size and offering facades that better blend into the surrounding neighborhoods, from timber gables in Colorado to pastel stucco in Florida.