sihanoukville+phom pehn

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Sihanoukville was just what we wanted and needed, striaght to the beach! We had lunch, then got the sand in between our toes by taking a stoll along the beach, and then lou, alex, me and jo got a full body massage while lying on the sun loungers...this was MINT, so relaxing.

To get rid of the oil from the massage and the sand we had to go for a swim. On the way back to the hotel we stopped off in a couple of the little shops, i bought another pair of denim shorts, they were only 2 dollars, better than the ones i got in hoi an and the money went towards yet another orphanage, how could i say no! Lou baught a lovely oufit, skirt and top and decided to wear it that night.

We had spotted that Utopia bar had a buffet pizza and pasta dinner that night for only $3, so most of the group went there. Brilliant spread for a load of hungry travellers.

After dinner we went back down to the beach, only a 2 min walk.....
We had loads of flyers given to us in the day and realised how many happy hours there were and tried to work out how cheaply we could do tonight. First bar we went to Colette and i chose it as we sat in the swing seat, ordered cocktails and sat back and looked at the stars......bliss, we had music, beach, cocktail and good company!

That night was a beach party, and we surely joined in, played some games and had a boogie. We spent most of the night in sessions bar and Dolphin bar....long happy hours, fire dancers,buckets, dance floors and free shots basically all night.

The next day Joe, Tom, 3 Geordie girls, Anna and myself had an early rise as we had booked ourselves onto a boat trip. We set off, and an hour later we were able to get in the water for a snorkel. It was amazing, we were so close to the jungle that was under the water.....full of coral and other rocks that were all different colours and housed all different marine life. The fish were also cool when you colour get close enough. Managed to get some wicked photos with the underwater camera! Back on the boat and the rest of the group tried their hand at fishing....this wasnt ordinary fishing, more like holding a plastic bottle with wire and a hook on the end. Mind you although it was basic we did catch a few little buggers.

We then went to an island for a swim and lunch. This place looked like the islands from shipwrecked! Amazing and no-one around!

As the local guide and his workers prepared lunch for us on the beach we had a play in the water, frisbee and just chilling out. Tom and Lou saw something in the water, Lou pointed at it and said its prob just rubbish, but just as she said that it swam in a circle, and was only a meter away from them. We all looked and realized it was a fish! As we had been fishing already the guys felt confident with the guide that they were going to catch it and put it on the bbq. It seemed realistic as it was close to them, they had a big stick to hit it over the head with. The fish began to swim away slowly, so the three boys tried to get it from 3 angles and guide it in. The fish then got a bit too far away so tom and the guide came back to get the boat, joe stayed in the water, like a caveman with his big stick, trying to catch the fish......no luck though... : (

When we were back on the shore we asked the guide what kind of fish it was and he calmly said, oh it was a swordfish!!!!!!

Then we couldnt believe that the guys had been chasing it and were only armed with a big stick hahahahaha! The swordfish is now called Paul..

After the comotion, lunch was ready, nice fresh bbq'd fish that we'd caught earlier, some tofu on a stick and salad. After lunch we walked it off, went and had a look at some tree houses. This was a great place and looked as if you could rent the treehouse, very basic, but an amazing location!
It was so hot so we didnt sunbathe here, just back on the boat, more snorkelling and fishing. This time we all fished and we all caught at least one, apart from Lou who had no luck. I caught 2, one poisonous and one rainbow coloured one, was exciting, but scary when they came out of the water and flapped about. Tom caught 4 fish- that'll be dinner for our guide!

The day was a long day. As soon as we had got back and changed, we had dinner on the beach, the others had a seafood BBQ, which looked lovely and you got a lot for your money! Late dinner but then early to bed. Emma, who hadnt been on the all day trip stayed out on the beach and came back later, sounded like she had a good night despite being on her own. We all had to have a lay in the next morning for various reasons, and it was nice not to have to get up for anything!

This was our last day in sihanoukville, so we thought we'd go somewhere different, we went to another beach, victory beach. This beach was much smaller, quieter and had a brill bar! The bar was an airplane hanger, and had an airplane inside, brilliant!! We sat on this beach, had lunch and didnt head off till about 5pm after a fresh fruit salad. We got a tuk tuk back to close to the hotel and went on the internet for a bit, then back to the hotel to wash off the sand from the beach. Changed quickly and went out, too rushed for a proper dinner and most of the other people had eaten so i got a veggie burger to take away and we all went to a bar on the beach.

Quite a few of us all sat around one table and had a few drinks with the barman....'Bournemouth' - started to call people by where they are from and not their 1st names, seems to be easier.... We all played ring of fire- a drinking/cards game and had a lot of fun. The best card to pull is make a rule, after a few of these you have all kinds of rules everyone has to follow. We ended up having it so everytime you drank you had to stand up, spin round, shout an abusive word, sit down, pretend to take a little man off the top of your drink..drink...put the little man back on and then you can carry on with the game. Another part of the game which was memorable was when leonie had to stand on the table, drink a pina colada and sing 'i'm a little teapot'...the only problem was she was dutch and didnt know the song- so we all sang together!
We had a new addition by this point, Ben from Australia....Gabi had met him in the day on a boat trip and he needed some friends so she dropped him off with us. Actually a genuinely nice guy. This night was again a beach-party night, cheap drinks from dolphin bar and good music to dance to from sessions.
Emma met and introduced to us a guy Reading, nick- very random...was funny talking about home with someone who knew what i was on about! We walked back about 2.30am....

Up at 7am......too early for most of us, but straight onto the bus, i didnt have any food so it was crisps for breakfast! The bus took us back to Phom Pehn, no rest, straight out on another bus to S-21, a school which Pol Pot turned into a prison and tourture place. This was quite a depressing place as the rooms had hardly been touched since prisoners were there. The way they treated people, normal human beings was disgusting. The reason Pol Pot killed was so he had no one to overthrow his government. He killed educated people and their family, and anyone who would even dare step a foot out of line. After S-21 we went to the killing fields. This was where people were shot and then slung into a pit. There was so many bodies buried here, some of the skulls were on show. Really hard hitting as everyone of those skulls represented a person and that person had a family..... a lot of people would have been directly affected by his mass murdering. Whilst walking in the killing fields there was giant holes in the ground where the bones had been excavated for examination, but the paths still had peoples bones underneath them and there was random material coming out of the ground in places, this was the original clothing from the people who were buried! Not just their clothing, but teeth appeared from under the sane...it was almost too real for some people.

This was a hard day, but interesting. Tired i went to an internet cafe with tom to burn our photos onto CD. I also tried to get a memory card to work that had decided to break whilst i was taking photos when snorkelling. The internet place couldnt work it out, so i think i might have lost about 300 photos : ( not happy as they would have been good ones, esp the underwater ones! ill just wait till i get to Oz and someone can look at it properly for me. As the CD's were burning i sat on the net for a while, then back to our room where joe and emma were watching a movie, straight after it finished, joe left and emma and i were asleep in 5 mins!

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