Paradise Found

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Tina Writes

I am writing this blog as Rob did not have much to say about Otres Beach.

We arrived at our lovely hotel in Otres Beach 2. We had decided to spend a wee bit more money here and have a ‘holiday’ so I booked White Boutique Hotel. I had wanted to book Tamu which is the hotel NeverEndingFootsteps had gushed about but it was a little too expensive. Our hotel was lovely, the room was 2 feet from the pool and only had about 16 rooms. Our room was the cheaper room but it was fantastic. I wish I had asked what make the mattress was, the bed was so comfortable. We were also 50 ft from the beach. The beach was white sand and the sea was shallow to below your knee for another 50 ft with water hotter than I would have a bath!

We quickly got our swimmies on and straight into the sea. I was wow’d. There were very few people around as well. We then took up a couple of sun loungers and I was quickly asked if I wanted a massage. This is effectively a dream come true for me. A beautiful setting and 30 minute massages for $5 (quite expensive here!). I took the girl up on her offer and ended up spending $25 on a foot massage, pedicure, my eyebrows threaded and then my LEGS threaded. I got this in the wrong order. I went from really relaxed to squealing in pain. The leg threading was really crap as well.

We had spoken to a member of staff who was really friendly and offered us a trip on his brother’s boat to the three islands for a day of snorkelling and fishing. We were here 4 nights so told him we would do it on our third day. As lovely as he was, he asked us every time we saw him from then on.

We took a walk along the ‘road’ to have a look and find dinner. We settled on a nice restaurant on the beach and indulged. I had Prawn Ceviche which is basically raw prawn. It was not good! We watched the stunning sunset and then walked along the beach back to our hotel for the night.

This place is small. A few fancy hotels like ours mixed with a few cheap wooden bungalows and a lot of spare land. Apparently this land has been bought by the Chinese, Vietnamese and all sorts, years ago with plans to build hotels when the airport becomes properly international. They have been promising for years this will happen but hasn’t yet. When it does, Otres Beach will become huge and expensive. It may be basic now and the beach is quite littered but go now before it happens. Go here instead of Turkey. If you really need the buzz of nightlife and shops, Sihanoukville is a 10 minute tuktuk ride away and even Otres Beach 1 is livelier.

Next day we did the same. In the sea, relaxed and then took a walk along the beach to Otres Beach 1. I had put factor 50 on after coming out of the water but I wasn’t careful enough. With plans to walk in the water along to Otres 1, I didn’t bother with the bottom of my legs or feet too much and then forgot when we decided to walk on the sand. The sun was very very hot. It was 37 degrees every day. That night my feet and back of my legs were in agony and pinker than a cooked lobster. We had to cancel the boat trip as I couldn’t even get shoes on never mind exposing my feet in the sun again and I felt terrible. We spent most of the day in our room but managed to wonder out to watch the sun set on the beach.

We extended our stay from 4 nights to 5 and had hoped my sunburn would have calmed down enough to go on the boat trip on our fourth day which it had, but Rob now had food poisoning again. So that was that for the boat trip. When Rob felt it would be ok to go out, we took a tuktuk to Shianoukville. So glad we didn’t stay here. It was a bit grotty. Full of bars for partying and the beach was covered in umbrellas and beds that belonged to the restaurants. There were beggars everywhere. We stopped for something to eat and Rob quickly realised we had to go back to the hotel after his third visit to the loo! So we were back before you knew it. I can’t remember what we did for the rest of that day and night but I think we went in the pool and played with the giant light balls that float around.



There were idyllic islands near-by but they are very undeveloped and there is no way I would enjoy no electricity during the day as that means no air con so we booked a flight to Siem Reap for the next day. I was sad to leave this beautiful place and I am sure I will return for a holiday here instead of going to Spain or Greece.

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