Back to Otres 1. Yippee!

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The weather in the early morning was truly horrendous. Torrential rain on our tin roof, absolutely deafening. Sam had left a window open to get a breeze and the rain came in and things got wet. To be fair, rain also came in through the gaps in the walls. The roof leaked a bit too. My bed stayed dry but all our clothes generally lying around ended up damp. We got up super early and couldn’t pack fast enough! It had stopped raining but the sea right in front of us had a swell, so we were worried about conditions further out, on the way back to Sihanoukville, and whether the big boat will run or maybe be delayed. Lots more rubbish bobbing about, as well as large pieces of wood. We had breakfast as soon as we could, to give it a fighting chance of being far enough down to stay there by the time we got on the boat..... The sea was swirling around under the jetty restaurant, I felt seasick just looking at it.

We trotted over to the next jetty at 9 and chatted to a nice Canadian guy called Brent who was taking our boat and had been to Cambodia 20 years ago. The small speedboat came round from the northern beach at 10,15 mins late and it was very full. Nobody got off. This was a disappointment as quite a few of us wanted to get on with some really big bags. Sam and I squeezed onto the back seats outside where nobody wanted to sit because you got a bit wet. It wasn’t too bad but there was a helluva swell and the boat had to keep slowing down so we didn’t slam into the waves. Then at Koh Touch Village we all got off and in a couple of minutes the big speedboat arrived. This is what was supposed to happen when we arrived. The surroundings were not very pretty (see pic). We had to walk up a really skinny plank at about 45 degrees to get on, but there were people to help us. See pic (not of us). I said to Sam, the village was our other option for somewhere to stay. Where’s the beach?, she said. We are really glad we didn’t stay there.

We arrived at Sihanoukville at around 12 and needed to get snacks for our long train journey on Monday. Result! Unfortunately our great success (see pic) meant that we only had a10$ note for the tuktuk. We chose the oldest tuktuk in the world, bless the guy, he had a smart shirt on but it had seen better days. We felt really sorry for him, trying to make a living. When we got to Otres we got him to stop at the entrance. We didn’t think his suspension would cope with the ruts on the road. We gave him the 10$ but he had just about no money on him, he can’t have had any fares so far. He said he’d ask someone to change it but we said no, we didn’t want any, he was so pleased.

It was lovely to get back to Otres Lodge although we have to change rooms tomorrow so can’t unpack. The staff are so great here and were happy to see us (or just very polite.....) and tonight is the buffalo barbecue with mashed potato. We are super happy about that!

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