Christmas Holidays Around Cambodia in 24 days– twice! Part 1 – Alison’s sister: Katie and friends
on So Now It's Cambodia (Cambodia), 25/Feb/2011 12:07, 34 days ago
The second phase of our Christmas visits was also the start of our round trip of Cambodia– twice!! On December 17th. we set off on the long bus journey to Phnom Penh – this takes about 7 hours. We were very glad to arrive at the Pavilion Hotelhttp://www.thepavilion.asia/again but not before we had popped into the VSO Programme Office to check for mail. I had arranged for a book to be delivered (through Amazon) as a present for Alison. As it was for Christmas I asked them to leave it there so I could collect it on Christmas Day. However, when I went back for it, it had gone!!I’m glad to say Alison’s present (in a much bigger box) did arrive – back at Mongkul Borei when we got back on the 10th. January! The other (smaller) parcel is a complete mystery and has not been seen again! There have been other reports of thefts of post and it seems a temporary security guardmy be the culprit but we don’t know for sureThe next day we got another bus to Sihanoukville. This took forever to get out of Phnom Penh and I was certainly ready for a stop before we’d even left the city! It took about 5 hours to reach Sihanoukville and we were glad to be met by a pre arranged car as we’d decided to try staying at the Independence Hotelhttp://www.independencehotel.net/. We had been a bit put off by tales of it being haunted but we found it to be delightful with a lovely, peaceful private beach and a café overlooking the rocks. Although it was a lovely setting the service was unbelievably slow! (eg. 10 minutes for a can of beer to arrive when I was the only person in the café!!).We stayed there to have a bit of comfort and to be near to Cove Beach Bungalowshttp://www.thecovebeach.com/ (where we’d stayed with Ollie and Claire) as Alison’s sister, Kate, was staying there for three weeks with her son, Harry, and a bunch of friends from the Cotswolds. We were able to visit and spend time with them by the sea during the day and we met up at Sokha Beach Resorthttp://www.sokhahotels.com/beach/?pg=beach for lunch of grilled fish on the beach, which is one of my favourite things to do in Cambodia! They all looked a bit pale after a cold English winter but they had plenty of colour by the time they left!They took to life in Cambodia very quickly and even took the dreaded night buses to travel across Cambodia to see the temples and back to Sihanoukville. Katie organised a boat trip to Bamboo Islandhttp://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g325573-d938984-r70859959-Bamboo_Island-Sihanoukville.html through the bungalow staff and we arrived after a brief stop for snorkelling. I wasn’t the only one having difficulty getting off and back onto the boat – they don’t seem to think steps or even rope ladders necessary! After a swim from the beach we walked across to the other side of the island where we had lunch at the only bar there and a few swims. The food was surprisinglygood and there was a Liverpool fan from England working there which was interesting!A big surprise was the biggest goat I’ve seen in my life!! It was a big hairy thing and he was wondering around the footpath back to the boat but I’m glad to say he’d wondered off when it was time to go. I suspect he’s one of a kind!When we got to the boat it was again a real struggle to get back on. I managed it– with help – along with one of Katie’s friends. However, the boat had run aground as the “captain” didn’t seem to know about the tides – so we were stuck there! They negotiated with another boat to tow them off. I started to get nervous when I noticed them tying the rope to the frameat the back of the boat and saw that some of the other side was already missing with evidence of previous rope marks! Almost simultaneously to our saying: “maybe we’d better get off - that woods going to fly everywhere” – there was a mighty crack - and wood flew everywhere! We ducked and fortunately weren’t struck by anything.We got off the boat and after numerous attempts to tow it free it refused to budge. We were fortunate that there was a“sunset” boat going later and we got a lift from them – fortunately the four young travellers were happy to share their boat with a group of about ten English holiday makers. Our somewhat wrecked boat returned after midnight when the tide was high enough.So after a few days chatting with Kate and her friends from the Cotswolds, we headed for just one night at the Nataya Resort near Kampot for some time to ourselves, en route to Phnom Penh for Christmas. The Nataya Resorthttp://www.natayaresort.com/ is a delightful place by the sea but it is quite isolated so you just go to the resort really. It has really nice semi detached brick bungalows:The beach is lined with palm trees etc. and you can eat on the beach under the trees.There is nice Indian (Pakistani I believe) food available!! My dinner was interesting as my oyster starter arrived at the same time as my curry!!!The beach is not good for swimming as it is mucky and feels like sinking sand. However, the main feature here is the beautiful infinity pool. This is a lovely feature and you can see the local fisherman (and boys!) going about their business as you“float above the sea”!!(This is me!!!)(Alison swims as if floating over the sea!!)(The boat's in the sea beyond the pool!)I’ve recently seen it featured in a Khmer pop video so it must be good! The bungalows also feature two sinks in the large bathroom plus a private outdoor bath and monsoon shower - which was wonderful!!We reluctantly dragged ourselves away from this comfort to head off to Phnom Penh for Christmas at the Pavilion before catching the plane to meet Michelle and Ali who were flying out to spend New Year with us. This is the next stage for another blog!!