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We soon realised that there isn't anything to do in Sihanoukville apart from drink and then be on the beach. We booked a ferry to go to the Koh Rong Island which left at 7.15am the next day. We found a hotel that was run by Estonians, we did think about staying there but it was about $25 a night!
David who we did the Mekong Delta / Phu Quoc Island with was in Sihanoukville so we arranged to meet up with. He also had our camera battery charger as we had left it behind on Phu Quoc Island, haha he also brought a pair of socks that we had left!
We decided that we would meet up at 8pm and have a few quiet beers as me and Jaan had to be up really early. Well as we all know a few quiet beers never stay that quiet! David met us with a lad he knew called Sam and soon the drinking began! We bumped into a American couple who Sam knew and we all headed to a place called Utopia which also has a swimming pool and great drink deals which change every hour. We ended up drinking a big list of different things due to the change in deals and also the shots of Tequila came out! I only could do one as they were so bad! I actually ordered two large bottles of water and downed one bottle as I knew we would be suffering the next day! So before we know it, its 3am. Me and Jaan leave everyone out and head back to the hotel thinking we have to be up at 6.30am! In Utopia there was soooo many prostitutes, all with fat old men! It was gross! The power kept going as well as there was a massive storm but that didn't stop anyone!
Luckily when I got in I remembered to set my alarm and it was soon time to get up at half 6! To say the least we were both ROUGH! Jaan was alot worse than me as I had stopped drinking and went on to water. We made our way to the Dive Shop where we would be taken to get the ferry. We had to be there for 7.15am. We managed to buy some water but didn't have time to get any food. The ferry to Koh Rong took 2hrs and was the worst journey I've ever had. At one point I was hanging over the side of the boat nearly being sick but I managed to keep it in. I think it was a cross between sea sickness and the hangover!
When we approached the island we knew that we had made the right choice by coming here. It looked totally amazing, white beach, clear waters.
We had booked into a bungalow just off the beach which was $15 a night. The company was called Paradise Bangalows. They had 10 bungalows and a restaurant which was being extended. The company had only been on the island a year. There were only two places you could stay on the Island which were both small bungalow complexs. The island had no roads, no motorbikes, no people selling stuff...peace and quiet. On the island there was a small community of local people but you couldn't call it a village really as it was sooo small. There were a few small local places which sold food really cheap. The dive shop had a dorm room on the jetty which was $3 a night and all the diving staff slept there as people came to the island mainly to do diving. The restaurant on the island was really overpriced, the food was sometimes good and sometimes bad. The system was that you don't pay anything on the island they write it on a bill and you pay for everything back in the office in Sihanoukville.
The bungalows were really nice, all wooden. We had an ensuite with cold water (but in the day it was hot as the sun warmed the pipes). The bungalows were very open to the nature which took me a little while getting used to. We had a mossie net, although there were no mossies on the island as they were so many dragon flies who eat them(according to Rudy the guy who ran the place). The main annoying bug was sand flies which took a liking to Jaan and they ate him alive, so bad at one point that we thought he might of had bed bugs so I had to text Dad and get him to send me some info on bed bugs as there was no internet on the island. Thank god it wasn't! We had 2 frogs in our bungalow and one morning we woke up to a massive black spider inside the net with us! The bungalow did have wood worm which was annoying as all night all you could hear was the chomping on wood.
On the island we spent our days lazing on the white beach, swimming in the clear waters and generally do nothing :) We rented some snokerlling equipment and that was really good. I loved it that much that I decided I wanted to do my first dive. Jaan did his dive first and I went along for the boat ride - and got really bad sea sick again! He really enjoyed his dive and did it with a guy called Eric from Belguim who worked there as a dive instructor. I decided to do my dive with him as well. I met him on the Sunday afternoon whilst he was between dives and he took me in from the beach to do all the procedures. I was really nervous thinking I wouldn't be able to do all of it, clearing the mask, taking the regulator out etc but I managed it all really good and he said he was impressed as it usually makes girls cry on their first dive! The next day I met him at 8am and we went out on the boat to do my first proper dive. I was really nervous when I started to get all the gear on, especially when he said I would need to jump in from the boat, but I managed it fine :) The dive was really good and I def want to do a PADI course. I wouldn't be able to tell you what I saw apart from fish :)
At one point we discovered our shampoo was missing and we thought it were the monkeys, however we didnt see any monkeys on the island, except the one in the cage. It rather frustrated us as we had no shampoo and we had ran out of shower gel..
We stayed on the island for a total of 6 nights (we were originally only supposed to stay 4 but loved it that much we extended). We left on the Sunday at about 4pm and got back into Sihanoukville at 6pm. We got taken to the office to pay for our weeks bill. Me and Jaan worked out the bill should of came to $277 which included all our food, dives and the 2 extra nights. We got a plesant surprise when they gave us our bill and it was $116!! I felt rather guilty for not paying for the diver, however on our last day just an hour before we left, I went to communual toilet/shower (as we had checked out from our bungalow already) and discovered our shampoo! The communual toilet is used by the local staff and it made us realise who took it - it wasn't the monkeys. So i just emptied the shampoo on the floor out of spite and when we got back to the main land we just paid our bill with a smile and left :)
We had to book thenight bus to Siem Reap on our arrival as it wasnt done for us even though we requested it. So when we arrived, we had 30 minutes to grab some food and book our tickets, Jaan went and booked the tickets, whilst I went to get some food as we were starving. I managed to get us a takeaway from a place called Monkey Republic which did amazing western food so got us a cheeseburger and chips for the bus ride.
So now we were heading off to Siem Reap - the gateway to Angkor Wat.
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mum Good to read another blog been a while.xx