Since Bryan is on a blogging strike, you get three of my blogs in a row you lucky, lucky people!

We actually went to the capital Phnom Penh first for two nights and then to Sihanoukville and then back to Phnom Penh. Not because we loved it so much but because all the buses go through the capital. However, to save the confusing blogs we're just going to write Sihanoukville first and the Phnom Penh all in one go.

Sihanoukville is Cambodia's main developed beach resort. It would be rude to travel through a country and not see what their beaches have to offer. It's a hard life but someone's got to do it. We were there for 3 nights and in actual fact the rainy season is well and truly in force now and it rained a good majority of the time. Having said that we had one day where the weather was decent and we managed to sit on the beach for almost 3 hours before we got rained on and had to take shelter in a beach bar! In those 3 hours it was so incredibly windy that we didn't feel ourselves getting burnt and the sand had got literally everywhere! But at least we topped up our tans.

Since we were staying at the most developed beach, and what has been dubbed the backpackers' area, I expected it to be much more lively, sort of like Koh Phi Phi. There were a lot of bars and restaurants but I guess the low season meant there were not so many tourists around. It was still a fun place to hang around and plenty to do even if the weather wasn't good. One day we decided to go to the "cinema". This place was really awesome. You book a room for a certain time and then you choose from around 4,000 films on the guy's computer (probably all illegally downloaded) and you get to sit on the comfy chairs or sofas with AC and have your own private film screening on the HD widescreen! Bryan has been on about wanting to watch The Dictator for weeks so I decided to let him have his choice of film to shut him up. It was actually quite funny and saved me having to look through a list of 4,000 films and make a decision. Surely an impossible task?!

Food in Sihanoukville was actually really good. There were your standard tourist restaurants selling overpriced western food but we also had some pretty cheap and decent local food. One very memorable meal was when we walked along the beach front and had a BBQ. We had comfy bucket seats literally on the beach, not on a restaurant on the beach but right on the sand, the sea was almost up to our toes. Then they barbecued über fresh massive king prawns for me and chicken kebabs rammed with veg for Bryan. These came with jacket potato (barbecued) or chips and a yummy salad. Writing it out it doesn't sound as great as it actually was but trust me it was a fantastic meal and location all for $3 each. The tables did have romantic candles on but unfortunately the wind kept blowing them out! There were loads of kids that came round trying to sell us things including handheld fireworks (not convinced on their safety!) but mostly they got bored of selling things and just wanted to play. One boy made the mistake of challenging Bryan to noughts and crosses in the sand. He knew all the tricks but so did Bryan and of course his competitive streak came out. There was no way he was going to let the boy win even if he was just a kid!

The beach we were at was quite nice but nothing stunning. Apparently there are some gorgeous and undeveloped beaches in the area. Had the weather been better we might have been tempted to go in search of them. However, hiring scooters is illegal for tourists here and while that doesn't seem to stop anybody doing it, the police do occasionally pull people over to get a bribe to line their pockets with. We decided it wasn't worth the risk with my 'Akhtar luck' starting to rub off on Bryan too we would definitely get pulled over! I'm still glad we saw part of Sihanoukville and got a chance to top up the tan slightly! I think it is probably a really cool place in high season.