17th February 2009

At 4.45am we were sat outside our guest house, it was still dark and there was no sign of a cup of coffee from our landlord! We were pretty nervous about this journey as we only had a vague idea how our travels were going to pan out. It was a quick hour and a half journey in a minivan to the Cambodian border and to a small town called Hat Lek. We arrived just after sunrise and had to wait nervously for the border crossing to open at 7am. We were under the impression that we had bought a straight through ticket to Sihanoukville, Cambodia, but we were still none the wiser as to how this was going to work, as our minivan could not cross the border.

Right on time, at 7am, the border crossing opened and we had our Thailand departure card stamped promptly and found ourselves in no mans land until we reached the Cambodian immigration. It became very apparent that there was no love lost between the two countries as there were many Thai soldiers present and quite a few angry looking Cambodians.

This was where the fun really started for us. People swarmed around us asking if we had a bus ticket and as soon as we showed them the tickets, our passports were handed over to the touts and they were filling out our immigration forms for us! We stood by bemused, watching our passports flying between different people, while we handed over our visa photos and 1200 Baht visa fee. Once we finally had our visas and passports tightly clenched back in our hands, we were then told to follow 'our driver', who incidentally looked about ten, to his waiting car, as he would be taking us to our 8am bus to Sihanoukville. It was now already 7.30am, so we were getting pretty nervous about getting there on time. Before we knew it, our backpacks were loaded into the boot of his car and we were told, "you just wait", as there were apparently 2 more people to join us in this chaos! At this point we got very worried as we watched our driver disappear on a moped! Then we became aware of the man who had completed our visa forms, after polite small talk all became clear when he blatantly, but politely said "I helped you, so you pay me". With our bags locked in a strangers car, we felt that the best option was to give him 100 Baht! Funnily enough, after that we never saw him again! At 7.50am our driver made an appearance and we were told to put our bags into a different car that would take us to the bus station!

This was an interesting drive and full of colourful language from our driver who was merely expressing his "love" for Thailand and the Thai people. Our drive to the bus station took us through a toll booth which only accepted Cambodian Riel, so our driver kindly paid for this and took us to a very shady money exchanger. We hastily changed some Thai Baht into Riel at a very poor rate. Someone has got this down to a fine art and is making some great commission here!

Eventually we arrived at the bus station to discover that our bus was actually leaving at 8.30am, rather than the 8am or 9.30am times that we had previously been told this morning. Was it any wonder that our nerves were absolutely shredded at this point! As soon as we had got out of the car, our backpacks were being thrown through the back window of the waiting bus and we were finally on our way! Did we mention that the bus station wasn't your usual looking one? It was just a dusty wasteground with buses randomly parked on it!

As we pulled out of the border town and into the depths of Cambodia, the change in countryside was very apparent, we were now driving through a lush green wilderness and through rolling hillsides.

After a pretty uncomfortable 4 hour journey, we arrived at Sihanoukville. As we pulled into the station tuk tuk's and mopeds surrounded the bus, waiting to greet all us weary travellers. At first this appeared quite intimidating, but it was clear from the beginning that they did not have an aggressive edge at all and were very laid back. Even though we were nervous about coming into Cambodia we had no accommodation booked, only a recommendation from a couple we had met in an Internet cafe in Trat. We quickly agreed a price with a driver and headed on our way towards the beach. In all honesty we weren't really in the mood for haggling, he could have said anything and we'd have agreed!

We played our Mary and Joseph roles for a couple of guest houses until we finally heeded our tuk tuk drivers advice and headed to The Beach Road Hotel. Thankfully they had a good fan room with all the trimmings at a good rate of 15USD per night. After settling in, we quickly grabbed some lunch at the hotel and returned to our room for a quick nap, it was time for our nerves to settle after our border ordeal.

Later that afternoon, we decided to have a walk along the beach, to see exactly what it was like. As we headed off to the beach, it became quite clear that we were in a fairly undeveloped country, as the road was just a dusty track leading down to Serendipity Beach.

The beach was filled end to end with bars and restaurants, so we wandered around until we found the cheapest happy hour on offer and treated ourselves to a well deserved cold beer. As we were enjoying our first beer, we noticed Rob & Luke, two canadians we had met at the border crossing earlier that morning, so they joined us for a few beers.

As we were enjoying a drink on the beach we were approached by three young girls who were desperately trying to sell us friendship bracelets. After quickly realizing they were not taking 'no' for an answer, we quickly found ourselves arguing why we didn't need one! Their English was outstanding and their sales patter and wit were incredible, so before we knew it, we were helping them make their bracelets! They even gave us all one for free! It was pretty clear that this beach was a magnet for hawkers and beggars, but thanfully no does mean no here and above all else are friendly and not aggressive in the slightest.

So, off we all went, with our new friendship bracelets on our wrists and headed to the Seahorse Restaurant for our dinner. No surprises that an early night was in store for us.

As Serendipity Beach was a bit too overcrowded for us, we decided to head to Otres Beach on our second day, to try and find some accommodation there for our stay. We left our hotel, arranged a good price with a tuk tuk driver and within a few minutes we were at the west end of the beach. As we walked down to the white sand, it was pretty obvious that this beach was much more beautiful and quieter and that we really wanted to stay here.

As we made our way up the sandy beach, two things struck us, firstly, that there weren't many bungalows here, and secondly, that the sand here was really squeaky! It was like walking through snow, very weird! It was slow and hard work looking for a room, as it was such an intensely hot day, but we found a great resort called, 'The Little Green Bungalows'. Unluckily for us it was full, but we were told to ring back the following day to see if anyone was leaving They had no real booking system, so this was really helpful to us! We carried on looking for the rest of the day, but had no luck in finding anywhere decent to stay. Although we did manage to track down Clares sisters colleagues cousin (bit of a complicated one), Mark, at the newly built Big Chill Bar, where we had a quick chat and some well needed water!

On our way back down the beach, we bumped into our Canadian friends, Rob & Luke, who had co-incidentally moved down to Otres themselves. We had a quick catch up, gave up on our search and headed off, back to our hotel.

After we'd cooled down, we decided to head off to the beach to try one of the many three dollar barbeques. It was pretty good, but we did get pestered by the usual beggars, hawkers and mine victims. So, after dinner, we thought the best idea would be to head nearer to our hotel where we wouldn't get as much hassle.

After ordering a couple of beers at the Cool Banana Bar, Adam disappeared to use the bathroom. As he queued up outside, he noticed a fairly familiar face in front of him. Adam realized it was Dave Pinto, a guy he worked with in Peckham, of all places, two years ago! What a small world! They stood open mouthed for a few moments, then couldn't stop laughing, this was a crazy place to bump into someone you know and Cambodia was the last place we thought it would happen! So, we joined Dave for a couple of beers and had a well deserved catch up. Clare even got invited to take part in a spaghetti wrestling contest at the bar the following week, for free drinks all night! Funnily enough she declined the generous offer! After a few beers too many, we made our way back to the hotel for a good sleep.

The next day we woke up in a positive mood and telephoned the bungalows on Otres Beach to see if they had any available. It was the same old story, still full and try tomorrow. Adams razor had stopped working a few days ago and he was starting to look quite beardy, so we hired a tuk tuk to go shopping for a new one in the local town. First stop was the supermarket, but they had none, so we carried on to the market. This was a huge covered market and was like a maze inside, with only tiny corridors to move around. Needless to say it was very hot and sweaty inside there, but as luck would have it, we stumbled across a cheap shaver, bought it and headed back to our hotel. As we took the shaver out of the box, we were both surpised to see how tiny it was. It was much smaller than a pack of cards, it must have been made for midgets! It doesn't matter if it does the job, but after half an hour of rubbing it against his face, Adam gave up, it wasn't doing anything. It must have been made for hairless midgets!

As Adam was heading to the local shop to pick up a normal razor, he bumped into Dave once again. They were both relieved it wasn't just a crazy dream, but luckily he gave us some details of a much quieter beach nearby to visit. It was called Sokha Beach and was part of a rather expensive, private resort and for a nominal fee you could use the beach and loungers.

We pulled up at the five star resort in our coughing and spluttering tuk tuk, by the look of the limousine and golf carts parked in the entrance, no-one arrives this way usually! We later found that it was only a mere 300USD here per night! We had some lunch by the gorgeous pool, that looked like it was straight out of a Kuoni brochure, the only thing we could afford was a $5 hot dog and we were glad we bought our own water with us! After a good feed, we headed down to the private beach and found a couple of loungers to settle on. It was very quiet here and nice not have anyone bothering you every few minutes!

After an hour had passed, we thought we were going to get away without paying, maybe we looked like their regular guests! No such luck, the security man came round and asked is for a massive $4 each! Clare fought a good argument, after all, why should we pay for a whole day, when we were only going to be there for two hours? They wouldn't move on the price, so we gave them the cash and after a couple of hours headed back to our hotel.

That night we really struggled and really sweated, we were now moving into the hot season and boy were we feeling the difference. So after a sweaty and sleepless night, we bit the bullet and upgraded to an air con room. We didn't do too much on this day except enjoy our lovely and new cool room while watching movies on cable!

Another day came and another phonecall to Otres Beach, but still no joy! We were really beginning to give up hope of ever getting there, but we managed to find another resort on the beach called 'La Casa', who had a free bungalow the following day! We decided that a relaxing day on Otres Beach was in order and we could also see how these bungalows looked.

We soon arrived and they looked very good! It looked like we had finally landed on our feet here. After a chat with the owner, we found out he had our names written down for the reservation, but the only issue, was that he didn't know for definite that the person was leaving the next day! It would have been useful if he went and asked them, but no, this was surely to easy for him. Our growing suspicions were compounded by the fact that he was drinking beer and whiskey chasers at 10am, not the most reliable word we thought! He was very kind though and let us use his comfortable sun lougers all day on the beach.

We had a great day here, it was so relaxing and quiet with no hassles, just staring out into the deep blue sea. We made use of the local beach sellers and both had a well needed pedicure. It's times like these and especially days like these that people don't realize how hard this travelling business really is!

The following morning we did the usual chores of calling Otres Beach and there were still no confirmed bungalows. We decided that simply just turning up with our back packs in such a remote spot was pretty daft, so we decided to abandon all hopes of getting a place to stay there and look into moving on elsewhere the following day.

After doing some research, we decided on a small Khmer town called Kampot and booked ourselves a mini-van leaving the following day.

That evening we went out to our usual bar for our pre-dinner gin & tonics, at 75 cents they were an absolute bargain! As we walked in we were surprised to see our Canadian friends yet again! After a quick chat we discovered that they too were off to Kampot in the morning, but were unsure if they had booked the same bus as us. After a tasty dinner and a farewell drink with Dave, we headed back to our hotel to get some sleep before our journey to Kampot.