Sihanoukville - Koh Rong or maybe not?

We again went with Giant Ibis for our bus journey and again had a good trip. We arrived in Sihanoukville early afternoon, checked into our accommodation. This time a hotel called the Coolabah Hotel. We got a free room upgrade because someone wanted to stay longer :)  Next stop was a place just round the corner called Monkey Republic to organise our trip to Koh Rong. The girl we dealt with was lovely and we got the feeling that anything we wanted would be "no problem, no problem". So we booked ourselves on the boat the next day and a beach bungalow for when we arrived on the island. Next stop sort out some washing and then lunch. 

We asked at a few places about visas for Vietnam too.  Then headed back to have a swim. Before dinner we went for a wander down to the beach, there weren't many people around except a whole lot of hawkers so we headed back and ate at the hotel.  That night the troubles started. I was up a lot of the night with an upset stomach.  In the morning I ate a very light breakfast of some fruit befor we headed off to wait for our pickup for the boat. While waiting for the boat in a very hot and stuff shipping container I had to make a sudden dash for a toilet. That was when we decided maybe going to the island needed to be put off for the next day, of course it was no problem for our friend at monkey republic to sort out for us. 

We went back to the Coolabah and they were able to check us back in straight away.  The rest of the day was spent sleeping and in the bathroom. By evening I was feeling a little better so went to dinner with Shaun. The restaurant staff were very kind and attentive offering all sorts of advice. 

In the morning we got up and had breakfast. I was still feeling pretty rough so we decided to cancel our trip out to the island which was disappointing but I didn't think I could cope with 3 hrs on a boat. One upside to not going to the island was Shaun got to have a Sunday roast, well technically he had 2. I ordered one and just ate the steamed veggies. 

We decided to leave Sihanoukville the next day as we had already spent a long time there. So we booked ourselves on a bus back to Phenom Penh. We couldn't book with Giant Ibis for some reason so ended up on a Sorya bus. My advice to anyone contemplating traveling with this company is ... DON'T! The bus itself it fine, it's older, but the aircon works and the seats are comfy enough. It the fact that we have been listening to Cambodian comedy from woman with the worlds whine-est voice on full blast for 4 and a half hours and we still have a long way to go! Her voice is so piercing it went straight through the music I was trying to listen to on my iPod (which has now gone flat!) 

The bus just got better as we came into Phenom Penh just on 5pm so lots of traffic they turned the aircon off for the last hour it took us to get through the city. The bus just got warmer and smellier the further into the city we went. 

I can't wait to get off the bus! We have got tonight in Phenom Penh and then tomorrow another bus into Vietnam. We are both looking forward to that. Whilst Cambodia has had it's ups and downs we are both ready to move on and hopefully leave this weather behind us.