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Published: July 23rd 2006
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You may not know this and we didn't until we came to Asia, but Cambodia has beaches and a coastline. So with recommendations from other travellers and the usual stuff in the guide books we headed to the town of Sihanoukville.
Our bus from Phnom Penh was harmless enough. One funny thing that did happen was this.
A local guy was sat diagonally to us all dressed in flashy clothes and gold jewellry. With tourists infront. Imagine this! We have only just got on the bus and only just set off (4 hours to go!!) We want to relax!! This guy starts looking and staring at us and the older couple sat infront of us. Then he starts talking to the couple in front, with the usual "where are you from, where have you been rubbish". Is he just being friendly? NO!! even just 10 minutes into the bus ride he was trying to sell his guesthouse, the guy never sat still for 4 hours!!!! Looking at us and the other tourists on the bus. Its so funny!
Anyway we arrived and immediatley got harrased by touts. WE RODE OUR FIRST TAXI MOTORBIKE or moto as they call
Scorpian
How cool? them. By the way before I forget, we learnt something new here! As the bus pulled into the bus station we noticed a guy stood behind all the touts with a large megaphone. We wondered what he was doing, but a few days later we found out. Apparently as the buses pull into the station, each person on the bus is allocated a taxi bike without the people even knowing!!! How crazy is that? So before we even got off the bus, we had a taxi booked already! and we didn't even know.
Like the blog title says there was a bit of sickness in Sihanoukville. Melissa was poorly for a good 4 days!
On our first day we met up with Kylie and Jon whom we have made good friends with and that night we went to an opening night of a bar called Moonshine in town where they had cheap drinks and free food. Now this was a strange bar!! Two young guys behind the bar, one had the shakes bad!! He looked off his rocker (but the funny thing was, that he was from up north, but not as up north as me, Andy) They
Seller on the beach
Andy got 6 lobsters for $1. just didn't give us any acknowledgement at all. In the end we had a good night and finished up in another bar, Monkey Republic, playing pool with a bunch of local girls.
The next day (Friday the 14th of july) Me and Melissa moved places from our bungalow at Coasters to a hotel called Diamond as it was cheaper, nicer and IT HAD TV! So did Jon and Kylie.
Then as Kylie and Jon had hired themselves a couple of motorbikes, we decided we would get one as well and check out the town and surrounding beaches.
It was both mine and Melissa's first time riding a motorbike, we had a really good day even though Melissa was beginning to feel a little worse for wear. I, Andy did most of the riding, it was fun!! But don't worry guys, with Melissa on the back of the bike she made sure I was on my best behaviour. At one point as we headed up a hill with Kylie and Jon in front and us in tow, they found themselves surrounded by a pack of barking dogs!! Kylie got bit on the leg, but luckily it didn't draw blood. We
felt so bad for her, but she took it well.
The beaches we saw were all really nice but not a patch on what we have seen before and all quite deserted due to the fact that it is rainy season.
That night we met up for a drink and only a drink as Melissa was flagging big style. Her throat was sore and she had an achy body so we went off to bed to rest.
And I'm afraid thats kind of how it stayed for 4 days!! We stayed in and watched tv only going out for breakfast and dinner. I went for lunch on my own and brought back food for Mel.
She took the usual drugs from our first aid pack, drunk lots of water and rested lots. I hung about worrying about her (don't worry if we thought it was bad we would have had her straight to the quacks) And basically tried to relax even though the weather was quit dodgey.
The day after our bike ride I, Andy went out for another spin with Kylie and Jon, It was great not having Melissa on the back so I could go
fast and pull wheelies on the motorbike!! (only joking)
On the Sunday Melissa found enough strength, for us to go and look at an orphanage we were interested in working at, it looked promising but we didn't follow it up as Mel got worse. (we were thinking maybe in Phnom Penh).
Down here on the south coast of Cambodia where Sihanoukville is there is a charity organisation called M'lop Tapang which raises money by selling stuff that the children make and that the have been taught to make. We sat ages talking to the girl volunteer that worked there, it was quite interesting to here about all the work that goes off to help the children and Mel bought a vest top.
You would think that getting away from the cries of "taxi, taxi" and the hustle and bustle of the towns and cities that maybe coming to a seaside place we would get a bit of a break from all of this. Well we were wrong!! Even just sat at a cafe on the beach you would be constantly pestered by children selling stuff, people begging, massage and manicure ladies. NOW WE ARE BOTH NOT HEARTLESS
PEOPLE AND WE HAVE BOUGHT THINGS FROM THE CORRECT SHOPS SO THE MONEY GOES TO THE CORRECT PLACES but experiencing this all day every day was both annoying and heartwrenching, you just have to feel so sorry for these people. But how bad off are they??? They all looked well fed.
On the Monday it was time to get to the chemist and get Melissa some proper drugs!! as we were running out and she wasn't getting any better. We now know it's tonsilitus. So I walked the couple of Kms into town, found a chemist and explained to the guy using hand movements and noises what was wrong. He gave me some massive tablets for her, bless her!!!
The following day the tablets must have worked because Melissa was feeling better and begining to get back to her normal self (so not good for me then) So we managed to take advantage of the improving weather (we know it's been red hot at home guys) That night we had a lovely bbq on the seafront just as night was falling. Then we finished off the night with a good game of pool in a bar.
Sorry
for the long blog, we try and make them interesting for you and we hope you are still enjoying them? We still love hearing from you all.
Wednesday, we had a really good day sunbathing and relaxing and we checked out a little cove nearby (we were staying in an area called Serendipity beach) just a few restaurants and bars etc. Melissa had her toe nails done, in a lovely pink colour by one of the ladies. They nearly fight over you for your custom. We had the bbq again then walked back to the Monkey Republic, an English owned bar. As we walked there we saw and nearly stood on a live black Scorpian (good job we had our torch) How cool is that?
So after an unexpected 7 days in Sihanoukville we had the chance to leave, which we did the next day (Thursday). In a way with Melissa being bad it gave us a chance to catch the sun for a couple of days which gave us a better perspective of the place. Its nice but not amazing. It was also not a nice time for me when Melissa was ill.
CAMBODIA HAS BEACHES!!!
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Dad and Anna
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got well soon
Just a quick note to say well done Andy for looking after the 'witch' when she was ill, glad all is well now, love the blogs.We had lunch round at Tony and Rhonda's with Kathleen (Bob is in Germany for a couple of weeks) on Sunday which was really nice, they're all coming round to us next Friday so we look forward to that. Love to you both and looking forward to seeing you soon. Love Dad and Anna x