This morning we discovered a wonderful thing. Our hotel does baked beans, fried eggs, grilled tomato, and (for those who enjoy such things) bacon for breakfast. They also do a very reasonable lemon juice and white coffee.
So after indulging in a hot breakfast we then met up with the rest of the group to venture out into the heat in Sihanoukville.
The beaches here are long and white, and the particular beach we are staying near is also lined with Asian style shack bars and restaurants – all with lounges and easy access to the water. However today we had a private long boat (painted green and graced with a blue tarpaulin canopy) to take us out for a day exploring some of the nearby islands.
Even at 8.30am when we met up you could already feel the sun seriously heating up – it was forecast to be about 32 degrees but it felt that temperature at 9am already – so it was nice to be on a moving boat, complete with sea breeze and shade. The boat pulled up to the beach and we waded into the water and took ourselves aboard up a short ladder. Somehow in the process of doing this everyone manages to sit on the same side of the boat, which is great for balance.
After half an hour motoring we anchored about 100 metres off one of the islands and kitted up with snorkels. All around the islands was a coral reef, with schools of fish darting around. Greg had never been snorkelling before, so after adjusting to breathing underwater, he was off – in fact he was the last person to get back on the boat about 45 minutes later.
(I found the water a bit choppy, and it also took quite some effort not to float too far from the boat because the current was quite strong, so after about 10min I got out.)
While Greg swum the rest of us retired to sit on the boat and fish (or watch others fish). It was serious business as we intended to cook the unlucky catches for lunch. All in all about 6 decent size fish were caught – some tuna and some that our guides didn’t know the name of in English.
So when all the bait was finished (and we had caught Greg as well) we pulled up the anchor – which actually took some doing as it was wedged between two bits of coral – and headed for a beach.
The island we landed at was called Koh Preus and it had a long, long beach, with shallow flat water that was a beautiful glistening jade colour. Way too inviting given that it was heading for midday and it was hot; we slathered on more sun screen and jumped in. The top layer of the water was serious bath temperature, but at about 20cm deep is was a refreshing cool.
While we played around in the water (I floated blissfully, while Greg kicked a volleyball around with some of the other guys), our lunch was being barbequed on the beach. (Side note: I only kicked the volleyball once – it looked like a proper volleyball but was actually one of those harder plasticky type things, so although I managed to drag my leg out of the water in time to do a perfect fly kick which almost went straight back to Alan, who threw me the ball, it really, really hurt my foot. After that we resorted to piggy in the middle and frisbee. All great fun while waist deep in tropically warm water). At about 12.30 a banquet of baguettes, fried rice, chicken and pork skewers (or tofu for greg) with vegetables and salad was delivered onto our beach blanket. And while we worked on devouring that the fish from the morning’s work was fried, and came out as a second course. There was also Sprite, Coke, and chilled water.
We then had until 3.30pm to wander around, play in the water and just generally do not much. I went to sleep in the shade before venturing back into the water, laying in the shallow water that was in the shade of the boat.
Greg went on a “photographic” mission, before returning jumping back into the water, and then collapsing onto the sand for a nap.
When we had arrived there had been another group of tourists further down the beach – but they disappeared at some point, I didn’t even see them leave, and we had the entire area to ourselves.
We had been promised another snorkel in the afternoon, but by the time we dragged everyone from the water and rounded up the adventurers it was already quite late so we headed back towards Sihanoukville, much to Greg’s disappointment.
The more beautiful part of the trip back was the impending sunset. Some clouds had gathered and the rays of sunlight were penetrating through onto the water. It was just an amazing colour – it was as if someone had got a dark blue texta and drawn on the horizon, and then coloured the rest of the sea in a light jade. I had never seen such a pronounced change of colour of the horizon before.
Even at this point the sun was baking hot, so I had a towel wrapped around my shoulders to shade them. I escaped the day with only a minor amount of sunburn. Meanwhile Greg’s back (and only his back, with a visible line along the ribs) was looking a glowing shade of red. The dangers of snorkelling.
After we returned, near to 4pm, we walked the 200 metres from the beach to our hotel, stopping midway to buy more water (I don’t know where it keeps disappearing to) and ice creams; we then showered, changed and prepared for our down town adventure.
We needed to procure some more cash, so we hired two motorbikes for 2 dollars to drive us into the main part of town (the tuk tuk driver wanted $3 so it was an easy choice). We flew past Amanda and Ella, who were walking into town, feeling that back-of-the-motorbike freedom. There is a main street which leads to the local town market. It is wide and filled with motorbikes. The main part of town here very much still feels like a rural Cambodia town – it is dusty and there are lots of little family owned stores, and urchins, as well as European tourists. We found the supermarket which also did a busy trade in exchange, as all the banks shut at 4pm, and also discovered they sold bottles of red wine for $5. It took all our strength to walk out of there without purchasing any. But we had dinner on our mind – as it had been many hours since we had eaten at midday.
The walk back took us past the restaurant where last night’s delicious Amok had been served – standard protocol would be not to go to the same restaurant, because it might be a while before we go back to Sihanoukville, but we figured if we ordered something different that would be OK and went in to sample their fresh fish and chips. It was wonderful.
On the way out we discovered our tour leader playing cards with friends out the front. They had rolled our a large mat and were sitting around eating and drinking (the restaurant was kindly serving them as the owners were friends of Nak’s), and playing cards for what were probably low stakes, but having lots of fun.
By this stage Greg and I were pretty ready for bed. So we headed back to the hotel with only one photography stop (Greg wanted to photograph the statue of the giant lion in the middle of the round about – many of the towns here have animals as their symbol, and they then create giant statues of them complete with giant testicles and place them in the main intersection).
When we got back to the hotel I put Juno on to watch and Greg promptly fell asleep. It was a lovely way to end the day.
Alice
