Phnom Penh to Hua Hin

Back to the city, back to Silver River Hotel, hot showers and comfy beds. Checked out the museum, a bit lame after seeing the royal palace, it looks as though the museum got their leftovers. We checked out both the Russian and Central markets. After many markets in different countries and communities, most start to look much the same same, but the Central market has them all beat with a massive beautiful yellow building and a high central dome that leads to four corridors. Wandered around and Steve received his first Cambodian haircut for $2.00. Now he's a sharp looking man! Later on I got mine colored for a whopping $7.00. There is a street by our hotel, close to the museum, where the locals go out in the evenings for some fun and fitness. Kids play soccer on pavement and all ages play badminton using the street barricades as a net. Many walkers and runners catching a bit of daily exersise, again same same but different! A lot of people want to say hi and practice their English and again welcoming us to their country. There are so many poor people living here, we've read that one third live below the poverty line and some people only have one set of clothes! That's a lot of people considering close to 2 million live in this city! I've seen families sleeping in the park while washing themselves and laundry. Now these are not druggies or addicts, these are the poor and homeless, quite mind boggling! Oh we have so much in the western world, it has been quite an eye opener! What do you really need and when is enough enough! Wish I could send everyone I know here, it really makes you take a good look at yourselves! We have seen six up on a moped, a mom breast feeding while being a passenger on a moped, kids sleeping on the speeding moped and an incredible amount of goods, car parts and merchandise hauled around on a moped, pigs, ducks, ladders, and huge stacks of eggs, most anything that we'd use a truck for. Handed in our passports and waited for our visas to process and head back to Thailand. There has been some conflict between the Thais and Cambodians over a temple, this has been going on for a long time. The conflict is happening at a land boarder crossing so to be on the safe side we've decided to catch a flight. We also bypassed the city of Bangkok and head towards the ocean to the city of Hua Hin. We had to wait a few days for the visa's to process and once again are lucky to have our friend Anne's niece Lindsay and gang to hang out with. These fine young adults are 25 to 30ish and in Phnom Penh mostly teaching English. We hooked up them at the Happy Herb Pizza parlour on the river. The next night Lindsey invited all for dinner at her place for yummy pasta bolonaise. Checked out their pad and had a good laugh at the freezer, it was an impressive solid block of ice (oh to be young again). A fun night and great send off! Caught our flight and hired a taxi for a 2 1/2 hour trip to Hua Hin. Because of our later flight it was so worth the $90.00! Settled into our fine hotel # ___ (who knows, where are my notes?). Anyways, rested up for some sight seeing the next day! Another new city to discover, when does it end? Lovin the adventure and mystery of what tomorrow may bring!

Seaside in Sihanoukville

Back on the bus! This time caught the bus that was taking a few barangs and majority of locals to the seaside town of Sihanoukville. We are adapting to the Asian seat size and not complaining as we looked around and saw many families with 5 sharing 2 seats. The Asian kids we find are polite and well mannered, the only time we hear crying and fussing is usually with the western kids. What's up with that! Why are our kids "the brats"? Our culture could learn from the developing countries as we see a similiar pattern, whether it be Mexico, Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica, or Asia, these children are well behaved. I guess we spoil and cater to ours a little too much! Who's the boss, who really runs the show? After about 6 hours for our 6 dollar ride we arrived in Sihanoukville, hopped on a tuk tuk and checked out half a dozen guesthouses/hotels. As the Chinese New Years approaches, many of these places get booked solid! Found a room at Serendipity beach in a hotel that we (thank God) only stayed one night. It was clean and quiet enough, but I was a little worried as our bathroom ceiling was dripping with moisture, well more like raining and hoping that the weight of the water would not cause the roof to collapse. Up early to hunt down another spot to hang our hat for a bit since we were caught last year with Chinese New Years in Vietnam and had a heck of a time finding accommadations. It was recommended that we go to Otres beach and what a great spot! Super quiet with a beach that was not stacked with people, and less garbage! Found a room at Mushroom Point, 7 small circular bungalos with round beds, mostquito nets, and thatched bamboo roofs. Breaky was included, great food overall, good coffee, sometimes a bit of wifi, unheated showers, kinda like deluxe camping, all for 30 bucks. The only downside was getting chomped on by a spider and mossies. Stayed there for almost a week before we had to find another spot just down the dirt road called Otres Bungalos. This was a bit of an upgrade with aircon and hot water. We would wander back to mushroom point and try to do some wifi stuff but in this little town there were numerous power outages with generators keeping the action going. The various beach bars and resturaunts had comfy papa san chairs to lounge on and great seafood abound. Steve even tossed a bit of frisbee around for a few days hanging with the Italians and one of the guys told me that Steve has the best hands on the beach (well I new that already) ha ha ha! One day we took a boat to check out a few surrounding islands, Bamboo and Koh Ta Kiev. At the second island it was nice and quiet so Steve and I wandered down the beach and he found a great spot for snorkling, I unfortunatly broke my snorkle so I watched as he swam au natural with the fishies. He saw some beautiful coral gardens and many medium and smaller fish. Nice day, then back to Otres for more of the same daily doings, beach and hang time. It was great to see the happy locals celebrate with their families, swimming in large groups fully clothed and enjoying their picnic parties. The downside is they leave all their garbage once they're done for the day. Gotta educate the locals on cleaning up after themselves! One day we hung out at this bar that we guessed was owned by cops as we saw a couple of them laying on hammocks while swilling rice wine and whiskey shots still in uniform. A lot of blatant corruption in this country. One day out on our moped rental # 16 we noticed other drivers signaling something but we speak no Khmer and they no English only to get pulled over by the police and pay $1.00 for driving with our lights on during the day, what kinda rule is that? Drove around, saw some sights and checked out a beach that Patti recommended, Sokha Beach. We went to the fancy hotel there and used their lounge chairs and later caught a bit of the hotels entertainment of the Chinese pole dancers, (not what some of you might think, perverts). We have seen this before on Khao San Road but always a great spectacle to watch! One man performs on top a 20' pole held up by several others. Totally enjoyed the vibe, beaches, and of course the people of Otres. Would definitely go back for a return visit. We are glad to see this area before big development takes over. There's quite a few concrete fences already in place separating the properties that will forever change the sights of this quiet little beach town. Ohhhh Otres.