Advertisement
Aah, well, it’s time to leave Kampot and what a pair we make - I’m now limping on my knee, which was hurting all night, and Rik’s foot is in pain. We’re off to Sihanoukville to spend a couple of days there and sort out our Vietnamese visas. One of the workers at the guesthouse has recommended Otres beach as the quietest beach there (although marked for development .. urgh!)
A bus is supposed to be picking us up at 8.30 but at 8.50ish it still hasn't turned up. One of the workers at the guesthouse calls the company and at around 9 a taxi turns up, stating that the bus was full (we have a niggling feeling that the company forgot about us). We don't mind, thinking we are lucky ending up in a taxi and assuming that it will be a quick journey to Sihanoukville. But the driver has other plans. He goes to the taxi rank, saying he wants to pick up some more fares. We witness him running after every random person who walks past the taxi rank, trying to convince them to abandon their current plans and make their way to Sihanoukville instead. We spend
some time twiddling our thumbs; have a few conversations with the driver, trying to agree a deadline for the journey to actually start (he seems genuinely surprised that we want to set off as soon as possible); he tries to obtain extra money from us (in return for setting off) and eventually we end up sitting outside the house of his friend and the third fare, waiting for them to get ready. We eventually set off at around 10.30. Phew! Anyway, the driver was pretty cheerful to begin with but his plans to get more money out of us were thwarted when we phoned the bus company. He does not speak a word to us for the two and a half hour trip. We eventally reach Sihanoukville and he drops us off outside the visa office.
An officer soon turns up and gives us some forms to fill in. We don’t have photographs with us? No problem. He copies the pictures from our passport, takes our payment and within five minutes has stamped the form. Woo hoo! On my way out I bump into a guy who is staying at Otres and he recommends a section of guest houises.
We flag down a tuk tuk outside the visa office and discover that the route to Otres is pretty interesting as we have to go over an extensive dirt track. The tuk tuk bumps its way to Otres beach (at time it feels as if it's going to topple over), we check out a few bungalows and in the end settle for one that does not have a sea view but, as Riks puts it, is a ‘sturdy construction’. And a sturdy construction is required because as we sit down to have a late lunch on the beach it absolutely chucks it down. We are under cover though and it is beautiful watching the rain storming into the sea. We meet a bunch of travellers, spend some time chatting to them and then Rik goes for a rest (foot is still painful) and I take a walk (knee has made a miraculous recovery; it must have twisted back into shape during the tuk tuk journey). I check out a couple of places that offer transport to Vietnam and then go for a walk along the beach, bumping into a couple of people we had met in Kampot along the way
(they arrived on the morning bus and unlike some people, were not unceremoniously forgotten).
On Otres beach, the electricity is only available in the evenings but we're used to working around that. In the evening we go to a bar a couple of doors away. We try to play pool but the building here is not a sturdy construction and the pool table is soaked. So we settle down to a great atmosphere, maintained by the barman/owner, who is already mortally plastered. The place is recommended for pizzas but when Rik tries to order his, the barman/owner keeps confusing chilli for chicken (with a villainous laugh) but eventually gets the order right. We chat to a couple until the pizza arrives, which is delicious.
We leave at the end of the night and Rik holds some money out to the barman/owner, saying he wants to pay. The owner, extremely confused, asks ‘What for?’ We have to list the items to him and place the empty drink bottles in front of the bemused one to illustrate what we want to pay for. We eventually manage to pay our bill and make it back to our bungalow before the generator
is switched off.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.178s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 8; qc: 50; dbt: 0.1007s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb