Southeast Asia: Cambodia: Otres Beach

Sorry it has been so long. Annie and I have been traveling in Vietnam for the past month and there is no internet cafes anywhere. Facebook is also banned there but we found a few spots towards the end of that trip that allowed use through our phones. Anyway I wasn't going to type a whole blog through the screen on my phone.

There is a lot of info for Vietnam so I'm going to skip over that for now and tell you about our time in Cambodia first, while it's still fresh in my head. I will tell you the stories of Vietnam when we get back to Thailand next week.

We left Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) early in the morning and took a bus through the afternoon and transferred in Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, which is near the Vietnam border along the Gulf of Thailand. Out of all the places we visited on this trip Cambodia seems to be the one struggling the most. As we drove through the countryside we noticed not many structurally sound houses built of brick, stones or concrete but tiny bamboo shanties built on stilts that looked as if they could collapse at any moment. When we got closer to the city the shanties turned from bamboo to scraps of sheet metal and other recycled materials and when we finally entered the city things seemed to appear normal again along with an excess of trash in the streets. The entire city did not appear this way but some sections made you cringe and wonder how people could live this way.

When we finally arrived in Sihanoukville it was 9:00pm and we were greeted by 20 tuk-tuk drivers screaming and yelling to get your attention so they could get your business. Vietnamese and Cambodians will annoy you to the point of mental collapse in order to make a sale. Not a very good way about doing business and it certainly did not work with us. The tuk-tuk drivers all lost that night as Annie and I opted for motorbikes to get to our Guesthouse in Otres Beach. Otres is pretty far off the beaten track and I was glad we were prepared for that because if not, I would have thought for sure we were going to be victims of one of those wonderful trips gone terribly wrong. We finally arrived to our Guesthouse called Wish You Were Here, but we didn't know what to make of it cause it was so dark, the village had no street lights and the light from other buildings didn't help much either. What we did know was that there was a cool little bar with ice cold Cambodian drafts on tap and a ton of comfy places to sit and relax including these neat little wicker chairs that hung from the rafters.

The next morning we woke up and finally got to take a look around and get our bearings. My first thought was how long are we staying here for and how could we rearrange our schedule to stay longer. There was a single dirt road with tiny beach bars, restaurants and bungalows. The ocean water was a nice turquoise color and the waves were perfect for body surfing and surfing if you had long board. The first day was fantastic and the icing on the cake was the beautiful sunset every evening.

That second evening we met Juan. "Get the ribs for dinner" he said and it was one of the most valuable piece of advice I got while on this trip. He was from Chile but had been living in Miami for many years. He was busy traveling like us until he found this place and was hired as a bartender. He doesn't get paid cash but they supply him with room and board (alcohol included). We talked and drank all night and he filled us in on everything we need to know about the beach. Where to get the best food, the late night spots etc. We also became good friends with the owners of Wish You Were Here, Johnny and Aaron. I can't even begin to tell you all the great people we met during our time there. It is a just a little slice of heaven in this crazy world.

To be continued....