Sihanoukville and Otres Beach

We took a 9.30am, 4 hour bus to Shianoukville the next morning. This is Cambodia’s seaside beach town. As we alighted the bus, as usual we were hassled by tuk tuk drivers. It’s hard to make a decision when there are 15 of guys looking to give you a lift. So the jist of  the deals they had on offer were ‘$6 for a taxi or $1 per person for a moto’. There were 4 of us (Neil and Katie too) so we enquired about ‘Moto’, is it a tuk tuk? Nope, it’s a Cambodian with a motor bike, who puts your 15kg pack in between the handle bars and himself and you on the back. It was actually quite fun, not too fast and smoother than being on the back of a scooter with Dave, ha ha…just kidding.

We stayed the night in a dingy ‘mozzie infested’ cheap room and left the next day for Otres beach. Otres beach is a bit hard to get too, but not really when you see the result. It’s a tuk tuk ride down a bumpy dirt road and before you know it you’re in paradise - a deserted blue beach scattered with islands, clean water, beachside huts, warm water and clean sand. The developers (Hilton, Hyatt, Westin) have not yet made an appearance thank god. Till then huts on the sand, electricity via generators and more or less isolation is still possible here. No more than 4 people can be seen swimming at once, there are no shops, just small beachfront guesthouses offering food, the odd boat is anchored close to shore and fishermen can still be seen casting nets from aqua longboats. What’s on the downside you ask? Not much, we used an outside toilet shed/shower, our abode was a grass hut with a less than comfy bed (makeshift slats built by an old Czech battler) but it was hard to complain as we virtually had a private beach and our bungalow oozed Cambodian charm.

Our humble hut

Views from our bedroom (Katie and Amelia sunbaking)

Dave getting a $5 hour massage

Sunset on Otres Beach

Dave trying renovation (trying to remove the slats from the bed)

A regular lunch spot

But being fussy western pain is the arses, we moved after 3 days to even greener pastures (next door) to the Golden Sunset which boats individual open grass roof bungalows, with bamboo blinds for walls, ultra comfy beds, power points and clean bathrooms. It costs just $10 to stay, that’s $5.00 per person, so we implore you to visit Otres Beach before the beachside shacks make room for the 5 star monsters because lets face it it‘s only a matter of time.

Our new beach hut

Believe it or not, Otres beach offers other pastimes apart from snoozing, reading, sunbathing, swimming and losing the concept of time, these include are Kayaking and snorkeling. So we hired a two person Kayak and only 1 paddle - for Dave. We headed towards a rather small but idyllic looking private island, anchored and dropped into the water for some reef snorkeling. The variety of coral and underwater plant life was amazing, the fish were plentiful and colorful too. After a couple of dives each Dave paddled east (this is a guess) towards home via a rocky outcrop for another spot of snorkeling, then we glided home with the current back to our abode.

Kayaking 

Dear Diary,

Last night it rained and we haven’t seen rain in Asia since we arrived on the 5th of February (shocking I know)… and it ‘s still raining this morning. It’s kind of nice as it’s a little bit cooler (we used a doona last night) and it sort of reminds us of home, except that the beach is still warm but perhaps a darker aqua, the man in the hut  next door still smoked his spliff at 7am and we still don’t have jobs.
Xo

After deciding to take an unexpected 2 weeks on the beach, we have had to cut our tour of the towns Kampot and Kep down to a night each, before returning to Phnom Pehn and boarder crossing to Vietnam. It has been delightful finding a place to overstay our itinerary, but Vietnam calls and our Visa here is quickly running out. We’ll stop rubbing out beach stay in your face and get back on a crowded hot bus and sleep in a stinky room for you all soon enough.

Enjoying a balmy evening