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Wednesday 28th June Laura - Still haunted by the jungle, I woke up several times during the night convinced that there were huge spiders all over the bed! This was not fun, although Paul was mildly amused with this because he'd stayed up to watch the late football. We woke up at 11am and checked out of our hostel to wait around for the 'shared' taxi to Sihanoukville (a beach town on the South Coast). The taxi turned up on time, which obviously took us by surprise. Then we were off. To the taxi rank....
We sat in the taxi rank for 20 minutes, watching all the taxi drivers racing towards anyone who came within 100m of the place and fighting over who was going to take the fares. Our driver had considerately swapped the Cambodian pop tape he was listening to for a fantastic compilation tape consisting of Westlife, Blue and Ronan Keating. All of this kept us amused for about ten minutes. So we sat there bored and wondered how long we'd be waiting for other passengers. We'd been informed before hand that the taxi takes up to 7 passengers (yes this is a normal car) so
we could be in for a long wait...
Another driver jumped into our car and we drove off. We circled the town and stopped at a guesthouse, where there was a pig standing on the side of the road. Me and Paul looked at each other and laughed because we would not have been surprised in the slightest if the pig was to get in the car with us! Fortunately Mr Piggy stayed where he was, eating trash, and off we drove again with no more passengers. Back at the taxi rank we waited for another 40 minutes, listening to the same songs on repeat, then were driven round the town again and back to the same guesthouse. This time two travellers jumped in, a very nice couple from the UK. And then we went back to the taxi rank!! Again!! The taxi drivers had a discussion outside for a while then decided that if we paid an extra dollar each they would take us, otherwise they would wait around until they had 6 passengers. Needless to say we paid up and finally we were off.
It was absolutely chucking it down with rain, and the headlights weren't
working. Everytime we went through a big puddle a couple of inches of water came in the car and soaked our feet. Apart from this though the journey was fine and the roads weren't even that bad. We even got seatbelts!! Although they did stain our clothes because they'd never been used before and were coated with a thick layer of dust...
We arrived in Sihanoukville around 4pm and headed down towards the beach. We asked in a few hostels about prices but nobody would be haggled down, even though it's low season and they have no other guests! We soon realised that this was because the taxi driver was following us to every hostel we went to and asking them for commission for taking us there! So we sat down in a cafe and had coffee and eventually he got bored and drove off. With him out of the way we managed to get a very nice room for a very reasonable price. The owners of the hostel have a cute little puppy who's started following us around and keeps trying to climb the step into our bedroom (but failing because he's too small!).
We went for
a walk along the beach, which looks quite nice. So it's a shame about the rain! There is quite a lot of litter everywhere though and there are many waste pipes running down the beach. So even if it clears, I doubt we'll be swimming in the sea! We ate in one of the many cafes lining the beach and watched the rain over the sea!
Thursday 29th June Laura - We had planned on going to Ream National park to get a boat around the swamps but it was chucking it down with rain again so that put that plan to rest! Instead, we decided to have a lazy day sitting in the beachside cafes, reading and drinking fruit shakes. When we'd got bored of that we took a walk to Sihanoukville's newly built 5 star resort (to see if we could sneak onto their private beach). It was very OTT from what we could see, and there was one villa which was huge and had 8 foot metal gates at the front! Perhaps that's where Angelina and Brad stay. Slightly out of our budget however.
There were security men guarding the entrance to the secluded part of the beach so we didn't bother trying to get in. We climbed over the rocks back to Serendipity Beach (where commoners like us are allowed to walk for free) and had a very nice dinner in one of the cafes. We played a few board games over a few beers then had an early night (well it had been such a hectic day).
Friday 30th June Checked out of our hostel and said goodbye to the cute little puppy who had become our friend and had started yelping outside our door to get attention. He'll probably be tonight's dinner for the owners...
We jumped on the back of a motorbike (we're getting quite used to these now) to the bus station and got on a gross bus which gave us zero legroom! After an uncomfortable 4 hours we were back in Phnom Penh.
We checked into the hostel we were in before and bumped into our favorite tuktuk driver, Bang, who was dissapointed he didn't see us in Sihanoukville as he'd spent the past few days there with his friend. We had dinner then went to the supermarket to stock up on beer and snacks for tonight's football viewing (yes, lucky us, we have a fridge and cable TV in our budget room!). For the first time in his life Paul will be supporting Argentina, I'm not quite sure how he feels about that!
We were a bit dissapointed that we'd gone to a beach town and couldn't properly enjoy the beach, but it was nice to see that side of the country, as it isn't really what springs to mind when you think of Cambodia. I didn't even realise Cambodia had beaches! It was really good to see the sleepy town of Kampot aswell and the national park was excellent (apart from the spiders). So many travellers we've spoken to just go to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap and it's a shame because Cambodia is a whole country, so obviously has much more to offer!
Bearing this in mind, we've decided to get a bus in a couple of days to a place called Battambang, and from there we'll get a speed boat to Siem Reap. Yes, ANOTHER boat ride! It's supposed to take all day and be a really good trip, so it sounds like fun!
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