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Cambodia 04th of April – 09th of April 2008
Company: Jana and Martin
Planned route: Tallinn-Helsinki-Bangkok-Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville-Phnom Penh-Bangkok-Phuket-Phi Phi-Krabi-Bangkok-Helsinki-Tallinn
Our journey began on the afternoon of the 4th of April with a trip to the Tallinn Airport where we flew to Helsinki with Finncom Airlines. There we had to wait about 2 hours for our direct flight to Bangkok with Finnair. It was night time flight and we even managed to witness a severe thunder storm which shook the plane quite hard. At about 10 am we happily landed in the Bangkok airport. As we had chosen Cambodia as our first destination we had to wait about 5 hours in the Bangkok airport for our connection flight. Then we took the Air Asia to the capital of Cambodia- Phom Penh. The airport itself was even smaller than the one in Tallinn and after going through the necessary customs procedures we made our wait to the hot sultry weather. 
The temperature was above 35 degrees and as to northern people like us it almost took us off our feet. The following destination was a village by the sea on the Cambodian west coast called Sihanoukville, where some familiar Estonians were waiting for us who had built a hotel in that village by themselves. We sat in the taxi and started the 220 kilometer long drive. The view that we saw from the cab window was everything but ordinary. There was no order: there were huge piles of garbage lying around everywhere, cows and people were mixed on the streets, strange formations of wooden chips were called houses, and there were no traffic rules. Whole families were fitted into one car and it looked like by magic the car salons fitted 10 people, all the merchandise was attached to the car’s roof and on the sides with ropes and in addition to that even five more people were sitting on the car roof on top of the merchandise. Unbelievable. In addition, our taxi driver gave us such a ride that during the three ours it took us to get there we were just praying to arrive safely in one piece.
Finally, by 6pm we arrived in Sihanoukville were we were already greeted by familiar faces. The hotel itself was quite small, but sweet with an open- air bar- restaurant and nice rooms. After settling in we started to get acquainted with Cambodian cuisine and the rest of the night was spent quietly resting.
The next morning we headed straight down to Sihanouville’s most famous beach called Serendipity. It was a large beach strip with snow-white sand and light blue water. The whole beach side was filled with beach shacks with entwined chairs placed in front of them. We followed Helen’s recommendations and ordered ourselves The Buckets which basically meant children’s sand buckets, but they were filled with alcoholic beverages.  For example, a bucket filled with local whiskey Mekong, energy drink, coke and ice cost in total 3 USD. Once we were nicely settled down small children started to surround us who were trying to cell us hand- made bracelets and armlets. When we had ordered a few then suddenly ten more children appeared who were all begging for us to buy something from them also. In the end it got really annoying as we could not find peace anywhere. On the beach we also met two really nice Estonians who had stayed there for already a month and were now planning to continue their trip to Australia. As we were getting hungry, we took a tuk- tuk and had ourselves taken to a restaurant called the Snake House. It was a Russian restaurant where a lot of different reptiles, birds, crocodiles etc. had been gathered. After a small tour of the animals we pampered our palate with a nice meal of pelmeni and potato salad. It is incredible how good something like that can taste in that environment. In the evening we decided to go back to the beach where up- beat beach parties where held. There we met some locals and also one girl from Australia with whom we danced until early morning hours.
The next morning Rene and Helen decided to give us a tour Otres Beach that was located close by. It was an incredibly beautiful and peaceful beach. There were no annoying merchandise sales people and you could feel a wonderful sensation of peace and quite and just enjoy the burning sun and 35 degree sea water. The local host also offered me some freshly grilled oysters but Rene advised me not to eat those. After lying on the beach for many hours, we decided to take a moped to go and explore the surroundings of Sihonoukville. Rene and Helen drove us through local villages and places that truly showed how poor the people in Cambodia really are. Their houses are simple wood shacks where all 10 members of the family are living together in extremely tight circumstances. We also went to the temple that is located on the highest mountain in Sihanoukville, where a local boy was very eager to become our tour guide. We could see monkeys everywhere which we really liked.
As the Estonians had also built a movie theatre by the hotel we decided to go and see a movie also. The Cambodian cinema is of course extremely different. More precisely, in the movie theater they had nice comfy chairs, mats you could lay down on, pillows and other things to make you feel more comfortable. You could also take as much drinks and snacks as you wanted and afterwards you would pay according to the empty cans and packages that you had. The movie itself was nothing noteworthy, but the feeling and the mood was indescribable. Amazing experience. 
The next day we decided to go on a boat tour of the island Bamboo. To do that us and some other tourists sat together on a long tailed boat and off we went. After about an hour long trip we were anchored and we could go snorkeling to discover the world under water. Then the trip continued until we reached the island of Bamboo and we were given 4 hours of free time. During that time we walked to the other side of the island and found a lagoon that looked like it has been taken straight out from a fairy tale. The sand was snow- white, the water crystal clear, palm trees, a lonely beach bar with cold drinks and there were practically no other people besides us. There the boat driver prepared lunch for all of us which consisted of grilled fish with different extras. An amazing luxury. Then we headed back to Sihanoukville, but also made one other stop to go snorkeling. The view was amazing as the water was really clean and dull on coral reefs. In the evening our friends took us to a proper Cambodian restaurant that was a whole different experience. I think nobody had ever seen a white person there, but as we had one local girl with us then luckily we got everything ordered just the way we wanted to.
The next morning we had to say goodbye to our nice friends and again take a taxi to get back to the capital Phnom Penh. At 3pm our Air Asia flight took off towards Bangkok. We continued from that point towards to Phuket, you may read from our trip to Thailand an my Thailand trip section.
To sum up, I can say that the beaches in Cambodia are the some of the most beautiful ones I have ever seen. The warmth of the people there, the smiles and the extremely cheap life is something because of what I would go back there in a heart beat. Thailand is much more developed and would have even been suitable to travel there with children. Thai islands and beaches are exceptional and also the local people there are very kind, helpful and smiling all the time. Thailand and Cambodia gave us a very positive charge for future trips that will never fade away. | 
