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We arrived in Sihanoukville after a 13 hour journey; Kratie to Phnom Penh, changed buses and then Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville. Arriving after dark we caught a tuk tuk, and after checking out a few places wound up at ‘Coasters’ right on the beach. We had hopes of staying in Sihanoukville for 5 or 6 days, enjoying some of the world cup, catching some sun on the beach and checking out the islands. We wound up staying for three days, sleeping in late the first day, we woke up to overcast skies that lead to rain and spent the day on our balcony staying dry. Our second day we rented a motorbike, hoping to explore a bit of the area and get our Vietnamese Visa’s processed. We made it about 5 minutes away from our guesthouse when we were stopped by the police and scammed out of $40 for driving without a Cambodian license (the corrupt-cop originally wanted $100 but we argued it down). It was complete bullocks, and I’m 85% sure that they just wanted to go out on the drink later that night, as when we were eating dinner on the beach we saw a handful of cops heading past us with bags and bags of beer! We also noticed that the price of things, like a simple 1km tuk tuk ride, were extraordinarily high ($10 for a 5 min ride in a tuk tuk). We later found out that the US military was in town, and every time this happens the prices of pretty much everything goes through the roof. So after the least exciting and most expensive three day’s we’ve had left for Kampot.



Kampot is a small town near the Cambodian/Vietnamese border, where the main attraction is Bokor National Park. We spent our first full day in town driving 25km to Kep with Rob, (a fellow Canadian we met on the bus), with plans to see Bokor National Park the next day. Our plans were ruined however when we went to the bar later that night to watch one of the World Cup matches and I clumsily landed by chair on Scott’s foot, giving him a nice bruise. Instead we spent the day being lazy at a nice guesthouse across the street from ours before packing up in preparation for Vietnam!!



And so we find ourselves saying goodbye to Cambodia, after three weeks in the country we’re ready for some new sights! We had a lot of ups and downs in the country, from seeing extreme poverty for the first time on our trip, to majestic temples and some recent brutal history. We met many interesting people, both local and foreign and had an amazing time in the country despite the difficulties that we faced. We’re both looking forward to what Vietnam has to offer and the adventures that will follow!

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Comments

[Donna and Neil]

Scamming Sihanoukville
Oh dear...we haven't been back to Sihanoukville for 2 years due to the scamming we experienced there (and a theft on the beach!), good to see the Cambodians have cleaned up their act concerning the scamming here (ha!) - there was the motorbike scam going on back then too. Sorry you had a bad experience in Sihanoukville, it did used to be a great (and cheap!) place to chill out. Hopefully Vietnam will be better - we loved Vietnam!