A final farewell to Sihanoukville and back to Phnom Penh....

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I managed to get up early and continue my cycling expedition today, hoping early morning would be a bit easier with the heat, but no, it still seemed to be in the 30's by 9am! Still i'm just glad to be feeling 100% again after the bout of food poisoning earlier this week so make the most of my day here with a hard bike ride (in the heat and several large hills!!) up to the main temple in Sihanoukville.... Road signs here seem the worst,but eventually i find it (miraculously by chance!) as it wasn't the way it was signposted but i find the back entrance so i arrive dripping with sweat feeling again like i've been having a spinning class in a bikram studio!!!

It was worth it though, as the temple is really beautiful and lots of really unique statues surrounding the grounds. One stands out as it's of naked men around a waterfall - not what i'd expect in a temple's grounds, ha!!! And numerous others which i'm now going to add to my fbk photo collection when i'm back but they are well worth seeing 😊

I had a chat with a couple of monks and then cycled back the 'scenic' route, basically less hills, ha! And treated myself to an hour by the beach swimming before it was time to get ready to leave.......

In the afternoon i caught my bus to Phnom Penh, before this my driver came to pick me up, but was on a moto! Which was interesting! Now i've seen them load all sorts onto these things here (including 4 people to one moto!!) but i wasn't expecting him to get me, my 2 rucksacks and another bag all on, BUT he managed it! And so we had a hairy 10 min spin to the bus station, me sure something would tipple off, ha! But we all made it in one piece - the moto drivers here definitely possess a certain skill.......

Well the 5 hours drive back to Phnom Penh flew by as i gazed out the window taking in the scenery and local villages, luckily i was facing the different way to coming so saw the opposite side.... We passed 'rush hour' time, which seemed to involve as many people as you can get standing up in the back of a pick up truck (id estimate about 30 - 40 per truck!!) the equivalent to a packed tube train at home i guess!!!! I really love just gazing out the window in these counties - is so much more to see than in English countryside and get to taste a bit of the real Cambodia outside the touristy parts......

Tonight since arriving i've wandered down to the riverfront where the craze on a thursday night (on friday nights it was aerobics!!) seems to be disco dancing and body popping lessons!!! Fun to watch!!!

It's sad again that it's my last night here, although overall i preferred Laos to Cambodia, it's still a wonderful and beautiful country and amazes me how happy all the locals seem all the time, especially being it wasn't that long ago that the killing fields, Khmer Rouge etc took over, but im guessing it's a bit like the last (2nd world war) at home, where immediately afterwards for a couple of decades everyone was rejoicing and happy, maybe war just brings this kind of after affect, or maybe Cambodians are genuinely just happier people, the kids have far less but seem far more satisfied with life...... But then the same goes for Laos, so i'm taking it to mean that materialistic things really don't mean everything in the western world....... That's the thing with bus journey's they always make me philosophize, ha....

Anyway I have the morning here tomorrow and then fly to Bangkok, only 3 days left, times flown by and hoping my weekend in Bangkok goes a little slower......

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