Sunshine and sand once more...

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After the rain in Phnom Penh we were expecting similar weather as we headed down to Sinhoukville in the south of Cambodia, however much to our surprise four hours later as we arrived- the sun was shining!! After finding a nice place to stay close to the beach we went for a stroll on the beach and sat and soaked up the sun with a drink for a while and relaxed.

We had a beautiful meal that evening right on the beach in a lovely restaurant sat on a swinging seat looking out to the sea which was excellent. We treated ourselves to a lovely barbeque meal and chocolate and banana pancake!

After a nice sunday morning lie- in we awoke to sunshine again much to Claire's delight! We spent a couple of hours sunbathing on the beach - with some stares and interesting looks from the Cambodians- many of them can't understand why we'd want to lie in the sun with our white skin and make it tanned- they (like many other Asian's) very much desire to keep their skin as white as possible - as shown by the numerous bottles of 'whitening creams' you see in the shops here. That afternoon we got two mopeds to take us into the town centre to do a bit of exploring and go on the internet.

Following day we were planning on hiring a moped to take a look round some of Sihanoukville's other beaches but we were told the police were not allowing tourists to ride mopeds that day- the result being a fine and the moped being taken away. After declining the man's invitation to get one anyway and 'turn around quickly when you see a policeman!'we decided to get one of the guys outside to take us to a waterfall 20km away down a long dirt track- three people squished on one small moped was interesting!very fun though, was a great ride and nice to see a bit more of rural Cambodia. The waterfall itself was really impressive and surrounding it a local village with the villagers having thier daily wash in the stream.

After a dip in the water we were back on the moped headed to another beach in Sihanoukville..this turned out to be a beautiful, quiet, not the usual tourist filled beach with not a soul in sight-we spent the afternoon here reading our books in the peace and quiet on pristine white sands, bathing in the sun which was wonderful😊

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