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After the harrowing history of the capital we decided to see a lighter side of Cambodia and hit the beach.
We headed to Sihanoukville, just about the only seaside resort in Cambodia and the one place to dive. The bus ride was fairly uneventful (though we never got the piece of cake we were promised). We were, however, entertained with the sight of our coach being loaded with mopeds. On the doubledecker the bottom deck was reserved for two wheeled cargo!
Our initial impression was that apart from being a bit ex-pat dominated S'ville was not dissimilar to Thai beach resorts, unfortunatley a visit to the beach soon changed this. The sand was strewn with litter, children pestered you with post cards and beads for sale and beggers and mangy dogs follow you everywhere, we very quickly beat a hasty retreat.
Cambodia's poverty was starting to really depress us by now so we decided to fix our mood in the good old Western way, throw money at it. The only expensive thing we could find to do was go diving so we quickly booked a two day dive trip (This is a slight exageration, we had arrived with
diving in mind). Once onboard and out of sight of the plastic bags (and worse) covered coast we soon recovered our spirits and enjoyed some very relaxing diving but all to soon we were headed back to land.
Two more days in S'ville and we needed to escape again, this time we booked a trip to a small island resort (I'm keeping the name secret, I dont want loads of people to go there and spoil it). This journey did not start well, the boat we had been promised by the tour agent had been large, with toilets and plenty of cover. In real life the boat we had to wade out to was nothing but a hull and engine, there were no seats and we had to perch on the sides, duing the two hour, rain soaked, journey several of the passengers threw up and we were just about to commit mutiny when we rounded the island and the bay we would be staying in swung in to view, suddenly everything was forgotten.
The resort turned out to be the paradise I had hoped for and not found the whole way through Thailand, There were only five
beach bungalows and the bar/restraunt building on an otherwise deserted white sand beach, plenty of palm trees provided shade and the back ground was filled in by jungle covered hills, perfect.
We had only booked for two nights but knew immediately we wanted to stay longer, in the end we spent the next five days and nights snorkelling along the coral reef, fishing with both rod and spears and partying next to bonfires on the beach before diving into the sea for a night swim illuminated by biophosphoresence. When new guests turned up we refused to leave and ended up camping in the bar.
You can imagine that we weren't best pleased to have to return to the mainland.
I must be fair to S'ville, it did have some good points, an excellent little cinema that showed current hits as well as documentaries and films about Cambodia, a local national park with very good mangrove boat trips and an embassy that issued us visas for Vietnam in about five seconds flat (it can take days else where) but had it not been for the diving and island I think we would have regretted going.
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