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Published: April 15th 2011
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Hello!
Lots has happened since my last update!
We had a nice chill out day in Siem Reap at a local pool, met some really cute cambodian kids and played some water polo in the pool for a bit. After a lovely Khmer dish we had to go and board our bus. While waiting we met some pretty cool guys from the Faroe Islands who were also heading for Sihanoukville. The bus was pretty horrible, none of the staff spoke english and the driver was crazy, after a few dodgy stop offs to give the drivers mates some large packages?! we made it to Sihanoukville at around 5am. We standardly got overcharged for a tuk tuk and checked into a fairly nice hotel (9quid a night with a decent swimming pool).
After Heather slept (i couldnt) for a bit we woke up and went to sort out our visa for vietnam, when we got to the office we saw the price was $45, I had only accounted for $35 so we were $3 short of the $90 needed for our visas, i managed to get an english guy to lend me $3, I looked hard to return it
to him but didnt manage to find the guy throughout our time at Sihanoukville, if your out there (enter name here) i owe you $3!
We then headed down to the main beach which was ok, cheap beer (40p) but it was a bit too busy. After some western dinner and our first alcohol bucket of the trip we had an early one due to lack of sleep the previous night.
The next day we headed for otres beach which was reccomended by Natalya (girl we met in bangkok) about 4km out of town, it was amazing! really quiet, lovely clean water, cheap food and beer, couldnt have asked for more, our favourite day so far! I also went for a run along the beach which was really cool untill I got back and my feet were killing!
We had a bbq dinner on the beach that night and met a cool australian guy who gave us some advice for the Aus part of our trip, there were some little kids who were really annoying and wouldnt leave us alone (trying to sell us more useless tat), eventually they got bored though. We then went for some
drinks and managed to get 2 beers and a vodka lemonade for wait for it.......15p, massive win! Some stuff in cambodia was really cheap and other stuff not so much!
We had already booked our bus to Phnom Penh so had to leave the next morning, which was a shame because I would have loved to stay other day and go back to otres beach! This bus was with a much better company who gave us food, drink, tannoy updates but unfortunately a flat tyre as well! That took about an hour to sort out and we eventually arrived in Phnom Penh around 2pm.
We quickly found a guesthouse I had seen on trip advisor and checked in, the room wasnt brilliant but the owner was really helpful. After a quick cool down we headed for the Toul Sleng (s-21) museum/prison to learn about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, it was horrific, I didnt take any photos because it didnt feel right, the place was a real eye opener and I still cannot believe that some of the horrible things that happened there took place only 35 years ago!
We went back to the guesthouse and
tried to find a well reccommended place for dinner, unfortunately it was shut due to Khmer New Year, as we walked around the streets it was clear that 70%+ of places were shut and it was a bit of ghost city, we did manage to find somewhere but it was rubbish!
When we first checked in I decided to call a company I had seen on the net who do quadbike tours of local villages paired with a trip to the infamous killing fields. I thought it would be a great time to use the money the guys from work had given me as a leaving present so I used the money to book the trip, it was brilliant, heather was really nervous but ended up being pretty good (surprisingly...) and it was cool to see all the people in the remote villages, everyone was partying (Khmer new year) and the kids all waved as we rode through. We had a great time, so thankyou to everyone at The Grand Charity!!!
That night we wanted to eat somewhere more local because the night before was crap! Our friendly guesthouse owner reccommended a place and it was really good,
much cheaper than western orientated places and much nicer food..... lesson learnt!!
So today we left the ghost town (phnom penh) and got the bus to Ho Chi Minh (or as everyone calls it Saigon) border crossing was much better than the cambodian one with only one tout trying to sell me Dong (the vietnamese currency before you jump to conclusions) at an awful rate no doubt. The only problem with the trip was that we were seated around loads of cambodian kids (girls i might add) who were a real pain in the ass, first of all they were using the bus (primarily our chairs) as a climbing frame, but once they found the fold out chair in the isle it was game over, putting it up and down roughly 100 times during the rest of the journey, each time bashing past me (why did I take the aisle seat). Buses out here arent brilliant especially if you want to get some kip, what with the blaring tv showing awful films etc. We hope to get more trains whilst in Vietnam as the network seems fairly reliable.
So we are now in Saigon, after reviewing a few
guesthouses (there are hundreds!) we have found one with aircon for 6quid a night, our cheapest place so far! Internet is cheap and washing is cheap, I think we are going to like Vietnam!
Its time to go and experience the city so bye for now!
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Heather
non-member comment
I feel that the quad bike comment was unnecessary. Just because I was far better than you...