As I am typing this we are sitting right on the beachfront, having just watched a stunning sunset and listening to the waves lapping on the beach whilst sipping our Mojito's. Absolute bliss. One of those perfect summer evenings…

This is a far cry from our experiences when we arrived here 3 days ago via overnight bus from Siem Reap. Cambodia's only has one night bus company, which is supposedly VIP and luxury, but makes Vietnam's night buses seem like luxury limousines! We thought that the roads in Vietnam were bad - they're no match for the potholed, dirt roads of Cambodia. We had downloaded movies onto our phones to watch to make the 10 hour journey a bit more endurable, but the roads were so bumpy that we gave up after 2 minutes of trying to focus on a small, rapidly moving screen - wouldn't like to try this after a few beers….

The night buses that we travelled on in Vietnam also had 2 drivers, who took turns in driving whilst the other rested - this bus only had the one and he was really motoring on afore-mentioned bad roads. In the few hours that it took me to fall asleep, I either lay there praying or wondering whether the bus driver was falling asleep himself…..all part of the experience, I suppose.

Anyhoo, we made it to Sihanoukville in one piece at 6am the following morning and after some negotiating (which we are getting pretty good at) with the swarm of tuk-tuk drivers, who descended upon the group of weary travellers who emerged bleary eyed from the bus, we settled on a price with one and were driven to our hotel. There we were met by a night security guard….. and no-one else.

I won't bore you with the full details, but will provide you the short version - we ended up staying in 3 different hotels in 3 days! No electricity or water in our first hotel, so at 10pm on the first night, we checked into an expensive hotel across the road, as all the other budget places were already full (this completely blew our budget for the day). What luxury though! We felt like homeless waifs who had suddenly won the lotto. Unfortunately we couldn't enjoy it to the fullest (including the swimming pool), as we already had a tour booked for the next day, so we had to check out early and into a third hotel further down the road.

Next place of interest was Ream National Park. Stunning! After seeing so much pollution in Vietnam and Cambodia, this was like a piece of unspoiled serenity. We had a long boat ride on the Pre Toek Sap river and got dropped off on Thomor Thom beach. With only 12 of us on the whole beach, it was like our own little private island. After spending an hour in the waves, we proceeded to trek through a part of the forest with our ranger (hot and humid work, whilst dodging humongous spiders and mosquitos!!!) to a fishing village on the other side. The local inhabitants had lived there long before the area was turned into a national park, so were allowed to live there permanently. Although these people have their own private beach and loads of land to themselves, they live in relative poverty. I'd wager that they probably have a more fulfilling life than most of us though.

Speaking of poverty - one of the flip-flops that our ranger was wearing had a small chunk missing from the toe and when we queried it, he told us that a mouse had chewed on it, but that he couldn't afford to buy a new pair. The poor guy only earns US$30 a month - $1 a day!! He admits that he does love his job though. Respect…..