Finally to the beach...

Trip Start Jun 26, 2008
1
9
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Trip End Ongoing


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Where I stayed
GST
(Sihanoukville hotels)

Flag of Cambodia  ,
Monday, July 7, 2008

7am departure from Phnom Pehn and a four hour bus ride, a small amount of time compared to our marathon overland trips recently. Once at the hostel - one recommended by our tuktuk driver - we went straight to the beach. Once on the beach we were surrounded with vendors, most of whch weere young kids who spoke excellent english, hawking all sorts of stuff. Mainly coulored thread which the would weave into 'bracelets' for you. Emotional blackmail from at least three of the kids saw me with three bracelts and a bookmark and $10 out of pocket - still it was good fun for a while. Kim inadvertantly manged to get her legs waxed through a process called threading by two women, she barely noticed when they started doing it but eventually she gave in and they di her whole legs which turned out to be pretty painful by the end! We psent the rest of the day chilling on the beach in the hazy yet strong sunshine and in the sea which was pretty choppy with 3ft waves. In the evening we ventured into the town and found a place called Monkey Republic - a western run bar with loud music, cheap drinks and great food.

The following day it was raining and i mean really raining. the torrential monsoon rain poured off the roofs and turned the road outside into rapids - never seen rain like it. This continued til aroundlunchtime, and we had decided to rent mopeds that day to go and visit a local national park. One moped later and we were two up with me on the back holding on for dear life as kim raced down the bumpy roads. Im not a good passenger at the best of times but she was more confident on the bike having owned one for years, later it would turn out that my control freak nature meant that i quickly got confortable and i drove the rest of the way which i think on average made us both more comfortable. We drove for about 13km to the edge of the park and instead of getting a guide we decided to go ahead and do it ourselves. This meant another 15km ride along the side of the park and then into it on a dirt track which followed round to the coast. The sea was turquoise and there were coconut trees lining the thin strip of deserted sand that ran for around 1km. Not a person in sight. So naturally i went skinny dipping in broad daylight in the south china sea - awesome! After chilling here for quite a while we began to head back, kim turned the bike around and promptly stood on a red ants nest! These arent the little ants you get in england, but about 1.5cm long and have pincers where heads should be, - i thought she had been bitten by a snake given how fast she moved!! No harm done though.

 We headed back and about 10km from home we realised the key to the ignition of the bike had dropped out on the roads somewhere, and we had done around 20km since either of us had last seen it. We headed back at about 20kmph scanning the road on the off chance that we could see it. Eventually we gave up and headed back as the sun was setting - a really impressive sight over the hills and the sea.

The following day was raining once again so we decided to move down the coast to see if we could catch up with some better weather...
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