Day 58 24th jan
We're collected from the hotel door by minivan and are whisked off to Sihanoukville.
Sihanoukville is a five hour journey south to the Cambodian coast... We've gone with the slightly more expensive minivan as opposed to a normal coach in the hope it'll be a nicer journey.... It's advertised as being around an hour and a half quicker and we should have wifi and air con too which make the $3 extra seem good value for money...
Well.... It's certainly faster....! And noisier, as your closer to the horn...
It's the same pattern as we've experienced all over Asia.... Minivan drivers are always is a desperate hurry.... I'm assuming due to there constant diet of Red Bull.... It least there not likely going to fall asleep...
They go as fast as they can if the roads empty.... You can travel for hours in a minivan and not get overtaken once... We pass moving cars like there standing still... It's easily UK motorway speeds on what are "main roads" out here, but at home you'd liken them to busy residential roads...
We continually pass small children that use the roadside outside there homes as a play area... Small kids (up to three) balance with there friends on one of their parents oversized bikes, They weave around without a care in the world... Inches from a quick death but there not fazed at all... It's just normal everyday life... There only protection being a beep from the passing vehicles if there directly in front of it.... one foot away may be deemed far enough by the driver who may then offer no warning at all.... Trucks making the ground shake roll by all day long.... Its a busy, dusty, dangerous play area, but when your home is a roadside shed and you live in absolute poverty it's all you've got....
We arrive in Sihanoukville and jump into a new style of Tuk Tuk..... One which we have not yet experienced in Asia.... It's basically a small car that had the roof removed from behind the drivers head.... Your feet go on what would of been the old rear seat bases and you set where the parcel shelf would have once been.... This whole raised seating area is now sheltered from the elements by a huge roof structure that attached to what's left of the original roof. There are two rows of seat in the back so this little Micra sized car can now carry 8 people with bags.... These guys certainly know how to get there monies worth out of there vehicles...
It's a reasonably short trip to our hotel, and whilst climbing out the back of it, we get a glimpse of what we've come here for.... The sea !!
To gain access to the hotel rooms you have to walk through a open plan bar area.... If there are any walls there well hidden.... From here you pass the pool and up a flight of stairs.... The rooms are nice.... We literally pull out our swimming stuff and head straight to the beach.... It's nice to be out of the minivan and in the hot fresh air with a beach insight.... It's a short down hill walk past loads of restaurants and dive centers.... Sihanoukville has a number of Islands off its coast and acts as a ferry hub to them all, along with many diving day trips.... As a result it has a large number of tourists staying here and a hungry bunch of locals happy to sell you anything you like.....
The sand is soft and fine and it's captured the subs heat well.... There is a continuous line of beach fronted cafes and restaurants with one long footpath between them and the white sand if the beach... The beach itself is around two miles long and 50 meters wide.... The waters flat and warm.... Our excess road is at one end of the beach, luckily the busy end... It's where the boats leave from, using the only jetty there is..... After walking in the small wash from the waves for 10 mins we find a place for our towels and barely move a muscle for the rest of the day.... We venture into the sea a couple of times to cool off, but with the help of much sun cream, it's just a sunbathing day.... There's plenty to keep us occupied on the beach from jet skis to banana boats or kayaks and micro light boats but we settle for people watching.... It much more fun here than in costa's.....
We did enquire to the cost of the jets skis, but they were to expensive at $80 per hour.
We only decide to leave once we began to see the sun get lower.... Our intention was to shot back quickly, get changed and be back down in the beach for sun set, but we took to long ( Shiree )
We also noticed that hour hotel was offering a Cornish cider and to our delight it was "Rattler" so we set in the sand and enjoyed a taste of home, whilst watching the locals fish off the rocks before heading off to a restaurant for a late dinner......