Cambodia - Sihanoukville

Unfortunately after Siem Reap Pam had to return to her normal life and I was once again on my own. I still had a few more days before my flight to Singapore so I caught an overnight bus down to the very south of Cambodia, an area called Sihanoukville that I was told has nice beaches. I upgraded my bus ticket to pay for a bed which turned out to be pretty comfortable. The seats were two stories of reclining beds, almost in a beach chair position. I had the very front seat so I was kind of sitting over the drivers seat, sitting (or sleeping I guess) next to an Australian woman. I slept through most of the night and after 12 hours we were really close to the beach. I had just woken up when I heard the driver freaking out. All of a sudden we swerved around this giant truck in front of us and smashed into some stuff on the side of the road. Then I saw the entire door of the bus go flying off. It turned out our brakes went, and the bus couldn't stop. One driver jumped out and was yelling to warn people to get out of the way, and then the other guy jumped out too. Because we were in the front seats over the driver with a clear view of the windows we are the only people on the bus who could see what was happening, and we were also freaking out as we were on a bus with no breaks and no drivers. Fortunately we were on a flat road so the bus slowly came to a stop, and we all climbed out. Everyone was a bit shaken up but ok, but the front of the bus was totally smashed up. The cops arrived really fast, and all these moto bikes swarmed. We figured that another bus wasn't coming anytime soon, so me and the aussie girl jumped on two bikes and headed into town.

We found a place that was right on the beach and checked in only to realize the beach was disgusting and covered in trash. We were going to leave and try to find an island but instead walked down the beach about a mile or two where we found a much nicer beach with little bungalows and decided to move there. I again had to survive a terrifying motto bike ride with no helmet over this crazy pot holed road. Our new place was 5 bucks a night for both of us. It had no hot water, only had power from 7pm til 11pm, and I don't think the walls really met the ceiling. But the people were amazingly friendly, the food was delicious, and we were about 10 feet from the beach, so it all worked out. It is currently the rainy season so it's the low travel time, and on the first day we didn't see any other tourists at all. There were people patrolling the beach trying to sell the usual: bracelets, scarves, food, massages, etc. Because we were the only ones there who could actually buy anything everyone just camped out around us and continued to try to sell their wares for hours at a time. My Australian friend ended up having her leg hair threaded and I bought myself a full body massage for 5 big bucks from an old woman with very strong hands and a sincere smile.

Our bus after the crash

Sunset on the beach

This dog was my bff on the beach. One time I was petting her and stopped to turn the page of my book and she actually bit the page so I would keep paying attention to her. Reminded me of murphy!

One old woman was walking down the beach with this plate of shrimp on her head. We bought some each day and they were delicious!You can see the crowd around her as they tried to sell bracelets and convince her to get her leg hair threaded. She finally caved to both.