Sunday 15th April

We got up and had breakfast while waiting for our pick up to the bus station and hopped aboard. We were pleased it had A/C as it was extremely warm (we have found out that April is the hottest month of the year, followed by the rainy season in May, timing again!). The bus took around four hours to arrive at Sihanoukville's bus station. The heavens had opened at this point and torrential rain soaked us. We found ourselves a tuk-tuk to take us to the hostel. It was a bit of an experience, my first tuk-tuk; I wish I had all body armour seeing how crazy the driving is here. I'm sure it'll get worse! We arrived at our hostel, Mick & Craig's, it was fine and clean. They had only booked us in for 4 nights rather than the 7 we had ordered, but they still had rooms for the extra nights, so all was ok.

We wondered down to the beach to find some food for dinner, we ended up at one of the beachside shacks, which there are hundreds, and sat down to eat. The beach was ok, not the best beach in the world, had some litter and women asking you 'Want massage?', 'Manicure?', 'Leg waxing?'. It got kind of annoying, but the kids were the worse, 'You want bracelet?', 'Where you from?', 'You need bracelet you come to me promise?'. For some reason the kids assumed we were from Sweden or Finland. Maybe we are that white…!

After some food we had a wonder around seeing what there is before heading back to the hostel and chilling out.

Monday 16th - Saturday 21st April

The next 7 days, don't really change much! Slept in, which was hard due to the power always went out between 7 - 8 am and it got really warm to sleep in any more. They have a power issue here, too many neon lights and sometimes parts of the town go into blackness! I have been bitten to shreds, mosquitos and sand flies, wow! They get so itchy. I wake up half way in the night itching like mad and having to get in the cold shower to cool them down! We spent one entire day at the beach, Stu got sunburnt and now cannot go in the sun for a while! We got hassled too much and the water wasn't nice nor was the beach. The water felt like a warm bath, it was always like this! I wanted a cold sea to cool down!!!

We vary our eating to four main places, the beach shack we visited the first day, Mick and Craig's, Monkey Republic and the Big Easy. They served everything from Western to Khmer to Thai food. We had a good feast of food here!

It sounds pretty boring, but after 2 weeks none stop in Europe and then two tours doing nothing for one week was something we were dying for!

We did go out drinking one night, a total of $5 each for the night. Pretty good! It's hard to meet anyone here really as most people have already travelled through Cambodia and this is their last stop normally so come here with their friends. To be honest, I didn't really care after being around people for 6 weeks I needed a break!

We found a cinema, well, a guy that has downloaded well over 3,500 movies and has private rooms with the coldest A/C ever! It was nice, we watched Johnny English 2 and Captain America.

We also got our Vietnam visa, which took a grand total of 10 minutes this included filling in the form! Brilliant! We have overlapped it with our Cambodian visa by two days, just in case.

We did actual do some sightseeing, we went to Ream National Park for the day, we booked with Monkey Republic $20 which included, breakfast, lunch, bus, boat, jungle walk and beaching. Great value for money. It was an early start of 8 am where a local taxi picked us up and took us to the local office. Our breakfast was a baguette and jam with juice, not the most exciting breakfast, but anything with jam is a winner with me! We got on a bigger bus to take us to the boat we were using for the day, it was a little boat and we spent an hour going down the river towards the sea. The banks were covered by mangrove tree, we saw the locals in the water fishing for shrimps, crabs, fish and oysters. It seemed like an ok job seeing how hot it is outside the water! We finally reached the ocean and went to the beach for an hour. It was a good beach, better than Serendipity in Sihanoukville! We then got dressed and had a walk through the jungle, it was only a 45 minute walk, but it was so warm! Really warm! I don't think I sweated so much in my life, and it wasn't even a difficult walk either! The ranger guide we had showed us the local plant life and bugs that were around, there were a lot of termite hills! We arrived at a local village where the office guide had stayed to make us our lunch, BBQ barracuda with rice and salad. It was amazing! We also had a platter of banana and pineapple to eat afterwards! After we ate we jumped back on the boat to return to the bus, along the way we saw hundreds of flying fish jumping out of the water! It was fantastic! We stopped at a viewing platform on the way back and climbed up the most rickety structure I have been on. The view was good through, above the trees and everything looked beautiful. Going down was worse, vertigo kicked in. When I reached the bottom I couldn't walk properly as my legs had really bad shakes! We got in the boat one last time and headed back, we gave a tip to our ranger guide and the captain of the boat, as we found out their monthly salary is less than our guides from the office, which is $45.

We arrived back at the hostel and had a relaxed evening, as normal! I have gotten into the rhythm of drinking coconut milk, mango smoothies and fresh lemon juice!

We also booked an island trip to Koh Rong, we were going to go to Koh Ru but we had to book the day before and I didn't like the sound of no having somewhere to stay confirmed. There are scores of people arriving here every day asking if there are free rooms and just the thought of having to stay at a crappy place like Utopia for $1 didn't interest me at all. Utopia is Ibiza rolled into one, pool, loud music (all night), cheap beds etc! Not my style! Monkey Republic had a sister place on Koh Rong, Monkey Island at $20 a bungalow was rather expensive but in return we wouldn't be spending a lot on site seeing. We planned two nights, we had to pay one night in full on the main land and the boat tickets, but the guy said most people plan two nights, most stay more. We have left it open until we get to the island.

Nothing much of significance happen, one night the hostel's kitten took a liking to us (I think Stu gives of this 'I love cat' scent' which attracts felines everywhere!). He kept running into our room and being a pain wanting to play all the time. One night we returned to our room to find a visitor, the cockroach, it started flying as soon as we opened the door. I did let a yelp, but being quite brave of myself I was fully prepared to get a glass and catch it. I got the glass but then reality hit me that I would actually have to catch this thing. Luckily the kitten visited and before I got the chance to walk into the room he caught the cockroach and took it off to play with. Super kitty! Saved me from doing it!

We had to buy something to help me with the mosquito bites I have been getting, its worst at night when it gets too hot with no breeze. One night I was actually wishing to be at home as it was affecting me that badly. They have swollen up and gone a blood-shot red, so my legs look very diseased! The guide from our trip suggested tiger balm, so we spent about $5 for the 'biggest' pot and I covered myself in it. I did read what to use it on, apparently it helps with flatulent and to rub it on the area of concern. I would not want to rub this anywhere near my bum! It feels like deep freeze, it literally is a freezing/tingly sensation. Not the best or quickest cure ever, but you forget you are itching because of the weird feeling you get. I end up waking up at 3 or 4 am in the morning needing to put more on, it's becoming a pain. I hope they stop biting me so much soon! I must be tasty as Stu keeps saying!

This is properly the most boring entry you'll read but to us we needed the down time ready to start travelling again, but at a slower pace than before!