Sihanoukville is a very strange place!

Will and I arrived on Saturday and set off on the back of motorbikes to Victory Beach, the main backpacker area according to the Lonely Planet, only to find...absolutely nothing! The whole area was a bit like a ghost town, complete with a herd of cows roaming the beach and the only other tourists seemed to be shady looking older men with Khmer girlfriends. It seems that almost overnight, the main area has moved to Serendipity Beach, about 10mins away by bike se we headed over there for dinner to try and find some signs of life and a new guesthouse to move to in the morning. And yet again... absolutely nothing! We were greeted with a long stretch of road seeming to go nowhere.

We decided to have one more walk around before giving up and going to bed and thought we'd try a little dirt track that looked like it went towards the beach and might have had a bar at the bottom and suddenly we found people! The whole beachfront is lit up with bars and restaurants, a lot like Thailand but you would have absolutely no idea until you were a few metres away. It's really strange to go from somewhere so quiet to quite a lively party area.

So having moved to a new guesthouse just back from the beach it was time for some serious sunbathing. All the beachfront places haven't yet capitalised and started charging ridiculous amounts for loungers - if you buy a drink you can sit there all day - but there's a neverending stream of women and children selling fruit, jewellery and massages and a lot of beggars. It's hard not to become desensitised when an amputee comes past every half an hour or so but then you very quickly remember why there are so many people here in so much poverty so we did our best to give to everyone. I also did my bit for the local economy having a manicure and pedicure on the beach while Will managed to keep the kids entertained with magic tricks!

Sadly due to too many late nights and gin and tonics, general laziness and having a tv in our room with star movies and back to back episodes of lost we didn't really manage as much beach time as we had planned. It would have been really nice to get out to one of the more deserted beaches or even to some of the islands - apparently Bamboo Island is the next Ko Samui and still completely unspoilt - but time was against us and I had to head off to Kampot further along the coast so I can fit in a couple of days before I have to go on to Australia at the end of the week...

xx