Sihanoukville and the Beach

What can I say? We opted for a night bus for the 11 hour ride. Best move we've made yet! We got some Dramamine from the pharmacist (and some antibiotics for my leg- see picture below) for motion sickness, a side effect of which is massive drowsiness! Woo hoo! We got on the bus around 8pm and were both asleep pretty soon after. We woke up around 2:30am, took another pill, and slept all the way til we arrived an hour early and 6km further outside of town than was expected. What are two boys to do at sunrise when they know that a tuk-tuk (taxi) cartel price gouges? Walk of course.

This got good and infected. See how they were just superficial scratches? Murky rivers make this giant oozing wounds. Oceans make them healthy scabs. Thank you ocean!

We set off into the early morning with our packs and plenty of sleep behind us... got about 2k, asked some directions, were disheartened to learn the cartel wasn't lying when they told us how far it was to town, took a walk with some local ladies out for a sunrise stroll, then begrudgingly hopped in a non-cartel tuk-tuk and got the rest of the way for a decent price. We walked around for about 20 minutes, a departure from our pick-up service in Siem Reap, but eventually settled on a nice place run by an Englishman and his wife. It was only a 2-3 minute walk from the beach and conveniently next-door to a supermarket! Hooray!

This is the puppy that lived at our hotel. She made the stay worth more than any amount of money!

Leighton also eagle-eyed the massive lemon meringue pie for sale at a bakery on the way to the beach and enjoyed no less than 3 giant slices during our 5 day stay.

The beach was nice, not as good as some... but our first beach for the trip! Hooray!!!!! It was our first beach since Boracay actually, over a year before. It felt REALLY nice to get wet and tan (we're both looking more and more like locals these days) and the service on the beach was nice. A few too many beggars and vendors, but it wasn't unexpected.

Not much else to report other than a brief bout of stomach gurgles for me which led to some late-night vomiting. GROSS! "Don't tell us that," you say! Sorry... truth is truth. Besides, I left out the diarhea!

On the 10th we hopped on a bus headed for the capital: Phnom Penh!