At around midday on Saturday 4 August, after a pretty uneventful bus journey from Phnom Penh, we arrived in the chilled out town of Sihanoukville. We managed to make our way through the throng of tuk-tuk drivers clamering for our attention and onto the main road. From there it was a short walk to Victory Hill, where we found a place to stay. We dumped our stuff in the room and immediately headed off to the beach. Littering in Cambodia is already a big problem, but what we saw on the beach was just rediculous! You literally could not stand in the water without some piece of plastic attaching itself to you. Apparently the big cruise ships that pass by just dump all their rubbish into the sea :-/ The water was amazing though - as warm as Mauritius! We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around on beach chairs sipping ice-cold beers and mango shakes :-) Later we headed back up the hill to a roof-top bar to watch the sunset - such a cool, relaxing day.

Sunday we slept in a bit and then grabbed a cheapo breakfast on our way down to the beach. Once there, we settled into some beach loungers, ordered some drinks, and thats pretty much where we stayed for the rest of the day :-) After the sun went down, we headed back up the hill for dinner, a drink and some Olymics at one of the bars along the short nightlife strip. Sihanoukville basically exists because of the port (Cambodia's only deep water port), so there is not really much else to do or see around the area. The next few days were spent in much the same way - taking it easy with lots of beach time. Just what we needed :-)

On Thursday 9 August we decided to hire some bikes and explore some other beaches a little further away. The ride through to Serindipity, the main tourist hangout in Sihanoukville, took about 30 minutes. When we saw all the people there we were glad that we had decided to stay at Victory Beach! We continued riding as far as Otres beach, which is still pretty undeveloped and wild, although the litter is still there :-( We had a look around but decided to head back to Serindipity where we had a drink and some beach BBQ snacks in preparation for the ride back. The cycle home was a bit trying at times (the rickety old-school bikes didn't help!) but we made it back without any tears, just as the sun was setting. We had a quick dinner and then headed back to the room to pack.

Friday we were up early for our walk back to the bus station. Even though it was just a 15 minute walk at around 7am, we were dripping with sweat by the time we got there :-/ We had an iced coffee to cool off while waiting for the bus. When it arrived we loaded our stuff and settled down for our day's travel up to Siem Reap.