After a good night sleep in our air conditioned room we headed out to our favourite street stall to grab some breakfast.... We were both feeling extremely fragile post wine. We had a plate of fried rice and pork which tasted amazing as usual, as well as a plate of veg and a bowl of broth... Very tasty. We had to pack up our things as today we head out to the south western coast of Cambodia to a popular traveller destination called Sihanoukville. We checked out and our minibus picked us up at 10:45 to take to the main bus station close to the central market. After leaving the minibus we were shepherded onto a coach which was like an oven initially. Thankfully the driver turned on the air conditioning which quickly reduced the temperature, thank god! The people on the bus were a mixture or westerners and locals including a few kids running up and down the isle, hopefully they wouldn't be too annoying. It was quite funny as above the driver there was a ceiling fan (like in hotel) which did not fill me with much confidence over the air conditioning.

It was slow progress trying to get through the crazy traffic of Phnom Penh in a large coach but somehow the driver managed it. Once you were into the countryside it had a beautiful Indian feel to it. I was content with solitaire and free cell whilst Laura was people watching out of the window while intermittently passing out. At the half way house stop where, as usual, they sold extortionately overpriced food we were both glad of the chance to go the loo and stretch our legs. During the second part of our journey you could be dark clouds looming in the distance. Once we were about 30km from our destination the heavens opened and the road quickly turned into the river. You saw all the bikes pulling over as they were likely struggling to see in the rain. As we entered Sihanoukville, the rain had passed and it looked as though it had not hit here! As the bus was passing through the town people were sporadically getting off. We were told there would be a free shuttle bus service from the first bus station to the second. Unfortunately what they didn't tell us if they have completely stopped going to the first bus station as it isn't near the beaches! But for us of meant that we had actually drove past where we were staying about 2km back. The company said we had to pay for a tuk tuk which are notorious in this area for price fixing fares (they act like a mafia gang). We were quite annoyed but managed to haggle a reasonable fare and reluctantly paid it. The other option was waiting to hours for a free lift back, the cheek of it hey! After a short tuk tuk ride and he driver asking for more money we arrived at the hostel called "Big John's on the hill". The owner called 'big John', which you may have guessed owns one of the most famous in Bangkok so should be interesting.

Our room was actually really spacious, en suite but had one double bed and 3 bunks which you could think was a little excessive. One of the bunks crossed the double bed which was pretty strange. We dumped off our stuff and headed up to the roof top bar which had a really good view over looking Victory beach, which was our area at present. It was fairly quiet and we managed to make the most of a current promotion and got two free beers for mentioning a poster in the hall lol!

It wasn't long before as usual, a more mature gentleman in his sixties got talking to us, we seemed to attract them haha! We learnt he was an australian who enjoyed travelling around still and was building a property in Indonesia. It was quite interesting hearing about his tales and he was a nice bloke. Although when Laura left he was checking out a website with all young blonde girls on his phone, guess its always the quiet ones!! During our chat the sky had come over very dark and suddenly monsoon rain was battering us. The amount of rain was incredible and there there massive lightening flashes in the distances. This weather would carry on throughout the evening and night. Obviously being so wet we couldn't walk around so had to eat in the hostel which is normally against our little rules. Our instincts were right... the food as pretty awful especially Laura's lumpy green curry with burnt tofu. Just shows the street food is normally always the best. After that let down we sank some cheap beers and headed to our room to rest. The late evening was just torrential rain and as the window was just mesh on side some water was getting in! Luckily it did not bother us as we drifted off to sleep!!