Sua s'dei from Sihanoukille; rob and I are staying at Monkey Republic which is a little complex with blue bungalows 5 mins from the beach, our bungalow is basic but fine. Apart from the daily power outages we have had no troubles here….

The last blog was from Mui Ne in Vietnam so I'll update you on those adventures…. The bus from Mui Ne was at 1am but it didn't come until 2.30am; I thought I was going to fall asleep at the road side! We got on the bus and made it too Saigon/HCMC in about 5 hours. Still very tired we found our hotel. For once I read the map correctly and directed us the maybe 20m to our hotel; we had a cup of tea and banana whilst waiting for our room. Our room was fine, had air con and full cable TV - good times. We had a sleep and then went to an Italian for omelets; this was our first encounter with beggars in Saigon. Instead of asking for money he just stroked my arm and asked the table behind for money - very odd. That afternoon Rob and I tried to find the central market and a Cathedral based on Notre Dame; this time it was rob's map reading skills (which is usually spot on) that sent us walking in 30oc muggy heat for over an hour in the wrong direction. It was all good we got too see Saigon! The second day we booked our bus to Phnom Penh and our tour to the Chu Cui tunnels also we found the market, cathedral and opera house. We had lush chocolate cheese cake (which rob now likes) outside the opera house J the tunnels were cool, its amazing how people lived under ground. Rob walked through some; well kinda crawled, but I didn't fancy it. We then ate tapioca which was a bit weird, kinda like potato! We left on the third day at 8am for Phnom Penh which was a 5 hour drive by coach, borders and ride were fine. We decided to do it as a tour after our adventure getting into Vietnam; I didn't fancy any chances with Cambodia.

Arriving into Phnom Penh we were swarmed with TUKTUK TUKTUK we dodged them and walked to a hostel rob found on hostel world. On the way we saw naked kids and kids eating dirt (althu I'm not sure they were not playing by eating dirt, rob informs me that boys do this) We got there and were informed they only had a 8 person dorm, I went up to look at it. It looked like a scene from Annie. One open room with 8 beds in it., that was it! Rob also went up too look…. She then miraculously found a free twin room. It seemed fine until we noticed the door did not lock and the window looked into the 8 person dorm, also the curtain was on their side of the window! We hastily left and walked another maybe 10 min to a hotel in the midrange section of the bible…. For $20 we got air con and a private room with ensuite :-) good times

That night we ate over looking the Mekong delta, kids swarm you asking you to buy books, braclets and post cards. The restaurant was kinda good about keeping them away but one boy when I said NO SORRY said YOUR NOT SORRY I CAN'T EAT. I was shocked, I cried! It's sad that they get sent out to sell at like 10pm or mayb they do live on the streets, appaz between 10000 and 20000 kids live and work on the streets in PP! the second night we ventured down to another restaurant along the river front, on the way we saw lots of ladies laid on like blankets with their babies and mine injured people begging. We had a lovely dinner and cheese cake. On the way back even thought it was only 10.30pm the ladies and babies had gone, it does make you wonder if they really are homeless! Either way it's sad to see. The third day we left for Sihanoukille which is a beach town on the south coast. It is hot here and not muggy also it cools down loads at night which is good. The beach here is narrow but clean, the only down side is the kids selling and ladies offering massage, manicure or pedicure. Also kids leading blind people begging. If you read or pretend you are reading they tend to not ask! Last night surprise surprise I has cheese cake for pudding :-) good times. Today we're going to Otres beach where there should be no kids selling. Also the sunset is meant to be amazing, this calls for another bumpy tuktuk ride.

Appaz here there are 1000 kids living and working on the beach/streets!

Tomorrow we leave for Kampot.

Lia suhn hao-y