Friday 19th October

After a decent night sleep we headed down towards the beach in search of breakfast. It's a long sandy stretch of beach with nothing but bars & restaurants lining the promenade.

After breakfast we had a sunbathe on the beach, it's been a long time coming & unfortunately I made the most of it. Burnt to a crisp. We booked a return boat transfer to an island called Koh Rong for tomorrow morning. It's an open return so we can spend as little or as much time as we like. Can't wait.

We had the usual dinner around 7 then decided to have a few beers on the beach. We were befriended by 2 young Cambodian girls with great English & they talked us into buying some bracelets from them. A young Cambodian boy spotted this & saw his chance to make a sale. He challenged me to an arm wrestle & I obliged. He beat me (albeit unfairly but that's not the point), then said that I must buy from him as that was part of the deal. I said no it wasn't & he called me a f***ing liar, a s**t liar, a c**t, told me my parents were dead & continued endless abuse at me. I told him to do one, he came back with - this is my country. Proper little smart arse & to make it worse he wore a United shirt. I so wanted to teach him some manners but what can you do? I didn't buy from him & he eventually left! Apart from that it was a nice chilled night!

Saturday 20th October

The boat to the island took 2 hours & the ocean was smooth, the sun was blazing. We didn't book a room in advance as we thought there were loads of places & it is low season after all. Turns out 3 of the 4 half decent resorts were fully booked, the fourth, Monkey Island, we got the last room available. After walking for over an hour along the beach with our packs on & no shade we were happy with anything. The rooms are incredibly basic, electricity from 5pm to midnight only, no fan, & the bathroom was super basic & occupied by hungry spiders! The walls were made from straw & they didn't meet the roof so we may as well have been sleeping outdoors. A mozzie net was supplied though.

It was like paradise outside the room, our balcony had 2 hammocks & we were no more than 20 feet from the sea. The sands were white as can be & the ocean a gorgeous turquoise.

I won't bore you with details as nothing really happened, we read, we swam, we snorkelled, we ate, we drank & we chatted with other travellers. We bumped into Chris & Carmel again from Vang Vieng & met an Irish couple on their honeymoon. 9 weeks travelling SE Asia, not bad!

We spent 3 nights on the island expecting to catch up with sleep but it didn't happen, the beds were uncomfortable, every noise woke us & we got seriously bad stomachs on the last day so kind of relieved to get back to the mainland to a proper toilet!

Oh, forgot to mention that we also had a rats nest in the rafters of our bungalow. I know this because a baby rat, no more than a few days old fell to the ground. The manager took care of the rat but no-one came to check out the nest.

Tuesday 23rd October

We arrived back to the mainland around midday & spent the entire afternoon/evening in the room moaning about our stomach cramps. Hoping to be better in the morning so we can continue to Phnom Penh & then into Vietnam.

Modes of Transport so far - 2 planes, 1 Taxi, 8 Tuk Tuks, 2 VIP Bus, 2 shared taxis, 4 minivans, 2 speed boat, 2 slow boats, 3 ferries, 2 pickup trucks, 1 sleeper bus, 1 kayak

Countries Visited - Thailand, Laos, Cambodia

Beers Sampled - Chang, Tiger, Leo, BeerLao, Namkhong, Angkor, Anchor & Klang

Miles Travelled - 8,880