Sihanoukville

When we first arrived at Serendipity Beach in Sihanoukville we thought we had landed on a greek island at high season. We were tired from the cycle and managed to look at 3 or 4 guesthouses before settling for a spaceous basic room over the crammed trendy places. Sihanoukville is like a bunch of individual towns clustered together rather than a big city as it has lots of different areas and beaches. Serendipity is a busy beach area with bars and guesthouses everywhere. During our stay we discovered that we aactually preferred having breakfast at Weather Station Hill (another area which is more chilled out) and to swim at Sokha Beach (almost deserted apart from the resort, white sand, no one trying to sell you anything). Dinner however was best had at Serendipity Beach where seafood BBQ shacks line the beach selling babylobsters, scallops, prawns, squid, exotic fish such as the tasty elephant fish for very cheap. In order to go from one place to the other we decided to abandon our bikes for the time being and jump on moto taxis which take you anywhere for about a dollar and take 2 people at once. (3 people isn't many at all for cambodian motorbiking standards). One day we took part in an organised snorkeling trip which was good fun apart from the fact that it wasn't organised at all - we had to turn round because the boatsman had forgotten the petrol. But we saw some stripey fish and green coralls and the bamboo island which is as close to paradise as it gets.

Serendipity Beach at night

Our snorkeling trip and bamboo island







cleaning our bikes with the bumgun

mosquitonetsunset

the cow that didn't care

Kinh's Shack, our favourite dinner place

tribute to Scotland

Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville

Day 1: 77km, Phnom Penh - Takeo
Day 2: 90km, Takeo - Kampot
Day 3: 109km, Kampot - Sihanoukville

3 long days of cycling brought us to the lovely coast of Cambodia. On our journey we met lots more friendly cambodians and we have seen some new ways of transporting babies on bycicles, for example in handlebarhammocks (picture 7) and baskets (picture 5).

On the first day we saw a dog being run over and fly through the air which was pretty horrible. We also met some other cyclists for the first time, but they didn't like Cambodia as much as we did. In Takeo we witnessed an amazing sunset by the water (pictures 5 and 6) and a strong thunderstorm at night. At some point we thought our guesthouse wouldn't make it as we heard a ceiling board crash to the floor in the bathroom.

On the second day we covered even more distance and got caught in the rain by the end of it.We don't remember much apart from stopping for drinks and food and a thousand children's hellos. Before sunset we arrived at the 'Bodhi Villa'in Kampot (last picture), a lovely place by the water with fairylights and good food.

Day 3 has been our longest day cycling yet and because the distance wasn't challenging enough there were some hills thrown in at the end. Luckily we had had a typical cambodian lunch earlier on that consisted of boiled rice, shreds of meat, egg and cucumber, broth, chilli sauce and coffee with condensed milk, and a pot of complimentary green tea, yummy perfect! (picture 2)

Phnom Penh

We ended up staying 5 nights in Phnom Penh, enjoying the comforts of a big busy city in french colonial style. Much bigger than Siem Reap, it has a lot more infrastructure and some excellent restaurants and bars. We went to see a few touristy things like the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, the Tuol Sleng Prison (now a museum) where the Khmer Rouge used to take people to torture and kill, or just torture and then send on to the Killing Fields to be killed, very spooky. It was a school before it was turned into a prison.
Ate very well and relaxed.

Siem Reap to Phnom Penh

Day 1: 64km, Siem Reap - Kampong Khleang - Dam Daek
Day 2: 64km, Dam Daek - Stoung
Day 3: 51km, Stoung - Kampong Thom
Day 4: 95km, Kampong Thom - Skun (or Scum as it should be called)
Day 5: 82km, Skun - Phnom Penh

We left Siem Reap early on Monday in search of Kampong Khleang (a floating village on the Tonle Sap lake. It's not really floating the houses are just on stilt, and during wet season they look like they are floating). The plan was to try to stay the night in the village but in the end we didn't as we were feeling insecure about the cambodians as people had been trying to rip us off all day and we just wanted a nice hotel room with a fan and TV (yes we've become addicted to cambodian soap operas and karaoke tv).
The road was great, all tarmac, all flat and no more mud. We took it pretty easy, stopping often for sugar cane juice, fruit smoothies, 2nd and 3rd breakfasts. After the first day things became more relaxed and everyone we met was very friendly and happy, and so were we.
Along the road we saw a guy with a ghetto blaster strapped to his bike playing cheesy cambodian dance music, he followed us for a while and we are not quite sure what he was doing, but it was funny. There were also lots more overloaded pick up trucks and we were glad not to be on them. Motorbikes that passed us were carrying their usual loads of 6 people, pigs, chickens, hay etc.
All the places where we stayed apart from Kampong Thom were pretty rural and we'd usually find a guesthouse, have a shower (although the roads are tarmac it's still dusty as hell) and head out to the local market for dinner. We're getting better at ordering and pointing but it's still a bit hit and miss.
All that changed in Kampong Thom where we had excellent food at the stalls as well as some tasty coconut pastries from the local bakery. After Kampong Thom we visited Phnom Sontuk a holy hill (only hill) with Buddha Statues and 980 steps leading up to the top. More fun than the actual hill were the children following us up, giving us their best shot at a guided tour. They definitely should have been in school but someone needs to earn a living. That day was a very long day and we were not impressed to end up in 'Scummyville' where they eat spiders and although there were many guesthouses (which is unusual), one was dirtier than the next. We were positively surprised with the spidergulasch in the market as it wasn't spidergulasch at all and we even ordered a second round.
After 5 days of cycling our bums really need a rest and Phnom Penh seems like a perfect place for that.