Beaches and bucket showers.

Well the past few days I've been down at the coast and finally had a chance to rest and relax. I'm in full on holiday mode now.

I've been to Sihanoukville, Koh Rong Samloem and Koh Rong. It's incredible that 3 places so close to one another can be quite so different! Whilst they all share the sandy beaches and clear blue skies that is pretty much where the similarities stop.

In Sihanoukville I discovered the seedier part of Cambodia; on my first night I met a group and we found ourselves looking for bars finding only groups of prostitutes and Russian bachelors out for a good time. Despite the negatives, the beaches were awesomr and the beers were cheap!
 

Onto Koh Rong Samloem where I stayed in M'pay bay. I think I underestimated quite how remote this was. A little fishing village with one boat in and one boat out daily, 5 restaurants, a handful of guesthouses and a local primary school. I spent my days lounging in a hammock, eating, chatting to locals and sitting round a campfire drinking (where the smell of grass in the air was potent). It seemed like the most popular form of entertainment on the island was smoking (people lit up openly at breakfast). On the last morning I went for a hike with two French girls, accompanied by two local dogs. Where we had to wade through the sea at high tide and eventually gave up on our adventure when we got stranded in a small cove for an hour. As much as I loved the island, when I wanted to leave it became impossible and myself and 4 other travellers ended up having to bribe a diving boat to take us off the island. After waiting 2 hours in the ocean to complete their dive we finally reached Koh Rong!
 

I stayed in a dorm with the most friendly group of English, American, Irish and Dubai (Arabic?) people and the nights were wild. I found myself hiking home through the sea on more than one occasion as the sun rose. I survived Ibiza but after two nights in Koh Rong I was broken! There are beautiful beaches there too, long beach was a favourite which we hiked too across the mountains on our second day. But after 3 days, hundreds of insect bites and no hot showers for longer than I care to remember I am excited to go to the city in Vietnam.