Our Last Day in Sihanoukville

It is our last day in Sihanoukville, so we decided to do a little venturing off of the beach and walked into town to find Starfish bakery/NGO. Starfish's profits go back into community development specifically aimed at helping the disabled. Breakfast was D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S- I had french toast on huge slices of homemade wheat bread and Brian had heart shaped waffles, although it was the juices that stole the show. Cinnamon + pear, watermelon + vanilla, and orange + carrot + ginger. After breakfast we decided we were full enough to lounge on the beach and wait to digest- so that's what we did- all day! Then after some happy hour and not-so great pizza, we headed over to a little concert/ fair just down the road and tried some excellent local desserts- although nothing can compare yet to the deep fried banana and coconut fritters, and the steamed banana in coconut milk that we had earlier on Otres Beach.  Tomorrow we're leaving at 7:45 am to Phnom Penh so that I can head to the embassy A.S.A.P!

 Orange + carrot + ginger vs asian pear + cinnamon. Asian pear + cinnamon won.

 This was in the middle of a roundabout in town and looks to me like one lion is mounting the other!

 

We saw this sign a lot around the city!

I don't think anyone really reads those signs though! Cambodia is a beautiful place but I have never seen so much garbage and litter in my life!

Dinner with our friend!

This evening Ashley and I went down to the beach and had happy hour drinks in the sand and watched the sunset (draft beer $0.50 and cocktails $1.50). Afterward, we walked to the night market for dinner and our little friend, Sovan, that we had dinner with the night before joined us again for another meal. After we finished Sovan attempted to teach Ashley and I Cambodian. Definitely not an easy language! However, he caught onto English very well! Tomorrow is our last full day in Sihanoukville and then we head to Phnom Penh.

Serendipity Beach

So we left Otres Beach this morning and headed back to civilization for a couple days before we head out to Phnom Penh. We are staying across the street from the beach, which is nice, however we do have to put up with a lot more hawkers and we miss our little friends that we met at Otres. This evening we walked down to a little street market and got a taste of real Cambodian food for $2 a plate. Two kids were walking through begging for food, I'd say about 10 years old, so I dished up a plate and one of them came and sat with us and had dinner. He didn't speak English but when he finished he said thank you and was on his way. I wish we had pictures to share but we didn't have our cameras with us, maybe tomorrow.

A trip to the falls

Today we headed out with our new beach buddies to a waterfall just outside of Sihanoukville. Each day these kids (our beach buddies) ages 11-17 walk the beach selling bracelets or fruit or what have you and since we've been on the beach day in day out, we've become friends. We buy fruit each day from Oun, a 17 year old girl who saves the money to pay for school- but today Oun became our tour guide.

Here we all are loaded up in the tuk-tuk

 

Oun, Ashley, and Sky

 Crossing the bridge to go to the waterfall

 

Not the biggest waterfall ever but still refreshing

 

Chan and Hoy relaxing

 

Chan came to the beach today with his police shirt on so we had to give him some aviators and take a photo!

 

Brian imitation...

 

 Chan sold me a supreme hat and gave me a good deal!

 So Brian gave them all Direstreets T-shirts and took a photo with them for the Direstreets website

 Direstreets team Sihanoukville, Cambodia

 After T-shirts they all wanted tattoos

 Brian trying to teach Sky how to play Cribbage. It didn't go so well...

Sihanoukville, Cambodia

We got to Sihanoukville last Friday around sevenish and caught a tuk-tuk to the most popular beach, Serendipity beach.   Since it's high season the place we wanted to stay was full, so we clambered around the beach in search of another accommodation. We were lucky enough to find a not-so-cheap bungalow for the night. I mean, floors aren't really that important to a room, right? Well, we had been on a bus for around ten hours, so we were ready for some alcohol on the beach but little did we know, we showed up during the full moon party!  Well we had enough of fire dancers, body-glo paint, and drunk backpackers, so we decided to get out of that beach and quick! We left the tourist crowd behind and headed to Otres beach. Otres is quite a ways out of town on a red-dirt potholed filled (though not filled-potholes) road. The beach has around ten little beach accommodations, so we wandered around to each little place before we settled on a place across from the beach for ten dollars a night and we’ve been here ever since. Otres beach has quite a sordid past- It is scheduled to be totally renovated to make room for the big boys in the hotel world. There used to be a bunch for shacks and beach bars lining the beach, but the Cambodian developers have ripped those out so the one’s remaining are doing so on a month-to-month basis, and could be torn down at any moment. We feel lucky to have experienced this little hippie haven while it’s still alive.

 

Here are our bungalows

Otres Beach!

We finally made it to the beach! We are in Sihanoukville, Cambodia