As it was my birthday I decided it would be best if I spent a few days relaxing on the beach in Sihanoukville before continuing the ride around the southern most part of Cambodia. The beach was nice although I think Thailand probably has better beaches. The main beach where I was staying had a long stretch of bars and restaurants that extended 500+ metres down the sand. They all had heaps of chairs, and hammoks and seemed to be largely clones of each other with none of them really standing apart.
At night they were all lit up like a mini Las Vegas and it was very pleasant to lounge around drinking beer and eating seafood. Beers were 50 cents and king prawns or BBQ fish were only $5 or so. One particular bar called the Dolphin Shack was jumping every night and I ended up there three nights in a row. Cool bar staff, open til very late, 50 meters from my hostel and best of all they had a beer funnel. The night of my actual birthday on the 21st ended at around 5am and I had hung out with people from England, Ireland, Israel, Sweden, France and Australia. I broke up a fight between the punchy Irishman and the placid French guy and watched an old geezer get into a heated altercation with his Cambodian girlfriend. Very eclectic mix of people and a slightly weird night but that is sort of how it goes here.
I did manage to ride the bike around Sihanoukville and, well, there isn't a lot here really. The most charming spot is about 10km out of town past the port where there is a fishing village with hundreds of boats and houses on stilts built over the water. Unfortunately the sun was just at the wrong angle in the sky to get any decent photos but I snapped a few. The one of the road is a good one with water on both sides and dogs yapping at your heels as you ride down it. The locals all give you a smile as you go past, and I left some little kids in my dust yelling for "öne dollar mister"
This entry is short as I am really just lazing around on the beach, but after a few days of this I will be ready to ride back to Phnom Penh via Kampot, Kep, the Bokor mountains and Takeo. Should be interesting as it is almost 700km and I am hoping to get off the hellish tarmac roads and onto some actual dirt. cheers Z More thumbnails ...
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