Our time was up in Vietnam. We'd enjoyed it but we're happy to be moving on to somewhere different. The bus to Phnom Penh was booked for 8am, so we were up bright and early to get our bags sorted and grab some breakfast before our short walk to the coach. It was parked up at the side of the road ready to roll so we stowed our bags underneath and found our seats ready for the off. Departure time came around and it was a pleasant surprise that there was only 8 of us on the 30 seater coach. That would help hasten the border crossings. I moved behind Charlotte to give ourselves some legroom. We had another treat when they brought us round some pastries for our breakfast, which we took when Charlotte's alarm signalled it was time to take our malaria tablets. The coach journey through Vietnam was pretty uneventful and we just passed the time by reading and eating. After a few hours we reached the border with Cambodia. It was a little bit chaotic trying to get through the Vietnamese side, there was no queuing system and we had no idea where to go. All of a sudden the rep from our coach found us all and guided us round the hordes of people and straight through passport control, as easy as anything. We got collared leaving the building by a uniform red man wanting to check the passports one more time. We thought this unnecessary but didn't question his authority when we saw his dagger-like fingernail, which he used for flicking through passports with ease. We hastily left him and his claw behind and rejoined the coach for the short trip to the Cambodian border. We had to stop in the middle for a pretty pointless lunch break, where only one person ate and everyone was standing around for 25 minutes waiting for the bus driver to return. Eventually he did and we arrived at Cambodian passport control. Half of us on the coach had already applied for and received a Cambodian e-visa but the other half hadn't. We thought it would save us time and make the process a bit simpler but the other group, who paid for their visa at the border, we're all through before one of our group had been sorted. The officer seemed very grumpy and we'd obviously inconvenienced him by turning up to enter his country and taken his attention away from him mobile phone. After a very slow process, we all made it through and back on to the bus. It was only a couple of hours left to Phnom Penh but the road was being resurfaced and it made the journey very bumpy and very slow. Eventually, we arrived and got off the coach to be crowded around by every tuck-tuck driver in the city. We declined as politely as we could as our hostel was only 2 minutes walk down the road. We only had 1 night in Phnom Penh for now and had deliberately picked a hostel close by the bus station for ease. We would be returning to the city after a few days spent in Sihanoukville, which is situated on the coast and is famous for its beaches. We had an afternoon spare but decided to leave any sightseeing for our return. Instead, we worked out our route from the bus station to the hostel we would be staying in when we came back to the city. It was only 20 minutes or so but we weren't particularly looking forward to it because of the heat but we'd just have to get over that. After finding the hostel, we walked in the direction of the Mekong River, so we could walk along the riverside and back to our hostel. The walk was really nice, along a promenade which had a line of every countries flag lining it. We made it back to our hostel and rested up ready for another long bus journey the next day. There was a very highly rated Italian restaurant a couple of doors down from our hostel, so we went there for dinner and enjoyed a humongous pizza each and had our first taste of Angkor beer, the local tipple. Charlotte wasn't overly keen on it and said it tasted like wine but it was palatable. We retired to our room, ready for another early start the next morning.
Wednesday
Wednesday
Our ride to Sihanoukville was with the same company that we'd travelled to Phnom Penh with, except we had the free pick up service from our accommodation this time round. It seemed a bit pointless though as by the time we'd settled in our seats we were pulling into the bus station. It turned out we were on the bus heading to Sihanoukvile already, so we stayed in our seats waiting for the off. The vehicle today was more of a minibus than a coach. When we'd booked the tickets (all the way back in Athens, where has the times gone!!!), we had the option to select our seat. We thought we had been clever selecting the front 2 as there would be nobody sat in front of us to recline their seats on to our laps but the van was designed in such a way that we had so little legroom and bag space and it made for quite an uncomfortable 5 hour journey. We made a brief stop along the way for a toilet break, then we were back on the road again. We pulled into town around mid afternoon, retrieved our bags and started the short walk to our hostel. We'd read that the Sihanoukville tuk-tuk drivers are considered the most persistent in Cambodia and they have even formed an "association" to rig the prices they charge. There persistence was pretty obvious as one followed us (on foot) almost the entire way to our hostel trying to get us to use his service while we were in town. The 20 times we said "no, thank you", very politely, just seemed to fall on deaf ears. Eventually he got the point and had to traipse all the way back to his tuk-tuk and colleagues with nothing to show for his effort. We arrived at our hotel, checked in and cooled off. We only had one objective while in Sihanoukville and that was to go to the beach. As the day was already half gone we decided to leave that until tomorrow and instead had a small lunch, treated ourselves to a nap then went out for dinner just across the road. It was a nice open restaurant and was full with tourists but seemed to be reasonably priced. Charlotte had the Cordon Bleu and I had a Pork escalope in a white wine sauce and we both thoroughly enjoyed our dinner but not the constant bug attacks. By now we'd developed some large and juicy mosquito bites and we both decided it was past time that we started using the insect repellant we had brought with us. We headed back to our hostel and had a relaxing evening in preperation for our trip to the beach the next day.
Thursday
It was a beautiful day and a perfect one to enjoy the seaside. We had our complimentary breakfast, donned our swimwear and wandered down to the beach. It was only a short stroll but we got pestered by tuk-tuk drivers the whole way down. Instead of settling down at the first opportunity, we walked along the prom, past the endless bars and restaurants and found a nice shaded spot underneath a tree to lay our towels down. Before we had come to Sihanoukville, we had done a bit of research about there beaches. We read they are really good, fairly clean but there are "roaming bands of children, led by a Fagin type character" who are known to steal belongings of people swimming in the sea. We tried not to bring anything valuable but still didn't particularly want children rummaging through our things. We decided it would be best to take turns going for a swim and after a quick sunbathe I was the first one in. The water was perfect, it was clear and just the right temperature. We had also read that there had been a few deaths in the sea in previous years, caused by ignorant jet ski drivers who rode them into the swimming area, so we had to keep an eye out for any coming our way. After cooling off for 10 minutes in the sea it was back out to catch some rays and Charlotte's turn for a dip. She was in and out as quick as a flash though, so we just relaxed on the beach for a while, getting pestered by people trying to sell us fruit, massages, sunglasses (despite the fact we were both wearing a pair) and cooked prawns that were being paraded around in the heat. After taking it in turns a few more times to enjoy the refreshing sea, we decided to wander up the rest of the beach and let the waves lap at out feet (like they do in films). For the most part it was pleasant, until we got near the end. It started getting filthier and filthier, with nobody sunbathing or swimming and we decided to turn round when we reached a dirty little stream, that looked like it had petrol or oil in it, that was flowing into the sea. We walked back the way we came and headed back on to the pathway that had all the bars. We decided we needed a cold drink and so took about an hour deciding which bar to choose (we are terrible at picking places to eat and drink). We sat down and watched in utter annoyance as too loud mouthed Brits tried to send a sunglasses salesman over to us despite the fact that one of them seemed interested in buying some. It later became fairly clear from eavesdropping on their conversations with the salesman, who kept coming back to them, that they were wanted to buy some drugs off of him but just couldn't make their minds up. It was hilarious and provided us with a good 20 minutes entertainment while we drank our beers. We moved on and considered stopping for food at a bar further along but decided to follow the road back to our hostel instead and found a nice little cafe along the road. We had another cold drink, a sandwich and a jacket potato. Rather than another visit to the beach we decided to head back to the hostel, dump our things and take a few photos around the town, as this was the only time we had to have a quick look around. That didn't take too long and before we knew it, we were back at the hostel, washing the copious amounts of sand off that had stuck to us. To save hassle and drawn out decisions, we went to the same restaurant we'd been to the night before. We weren't boring though and tried something different. Afterwards, we went back to the hostel to try and sort out some photos and a blog, then went to bed, ready for our bus trip back to Phnom Penh the next day.
James and Charlotte
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