Bags packed, I went up to the riverside road corner and breakfasted in a Chinesy looking place, western breakfast with juice and tea, good service.
To enjoy it better, I unstrapped my waistband bag with all my valuables: 500GB disc with all my data and photos, 4 GB USB stick with all my documents and passwords, passport, ticket to Australia, other personal documents. And of course forgot it on a chair when I left. I took my day pack, also black but missed the other. Discovered this catastrophe shortly before the 9:30 pickup, hurried back, the waitress waved to me through the window, all was safe.
While I waited, I noticed a monk doing his alms round:
The minibus came at 9:50, taking a load of tourists to a local bus company. My bags were quickly slung into the luggage compartment (no tags) and I got on the bus due to leave at 10:00.
We took about 45 minutes to mosey our way through the city and suburbs, then got up to a spanking 60 km an hour for the open highway bits, less for towns and villages. The trip was 4 hours travel plus 20 minutes break.
Outer suburb of Phnom Penh:
Most of Cambodia is flat, but some hills cropped up and at last a view of the sea.
I had booked with the Orchidee Guest House and expected to be collected by tuk-tuk, but the bus stopped at the company's office, not at the bus station, so after a short wait I haggled with another driver and was taken the 10 minutes drive there for $3. This was refunded to me by the guesthouse, but I gave it back when moving out because the wifi reception was inadequate, and moved to the Beach Road Hotel just up the road (Serendipity Beach area).
This room was my poshest in Cambodia (also $20), and the pool was 5 steps from my door.
When French Indochina split up into Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos at independence, Cambodia had no port, so built its own at Sihanoukville. The commercial port is still the most important part, though post-colonials did build some holiday houses, large abandoned walled areas abound. Nowadays there are facilities for modern travellers and lots of beach shacks, bungalows, guesthouses, restaurants and tour companies. A town with market too, and villages with agriculture in the hinterland, but the main attraction is the beach and the traveller culture, if you can call it culture. My hotel seemed perfect, but at night until midnight the disco next door, called Utopia, was blasting out boom-boom music fit to bust.
The road to the beach was red dirt and rock, lined with travel companies and fashion boutiques. The beach was quite nice, and I had a first swim in the sea, which was not even cool, just tepid. However, the Cambodian habit of buying and selling everything in plastic bags then throwing them away made it less than perfect when brushing up against them while swimming in the sea. The beach was also accordingly littered.
Back at the hotel I had a dip in the pool to clean anything dubious off in the chlorinated, also tepid water.
For dinner I had a choice between the Coolabah Seafood Terrace, Monkey Republic, Cool Banana, Mexico Bar, Casa, and the Khmer one I chose with barbecued fish.
Back at the hotel I tried to make headway with my travel blog, but although the wifi functioned, the transfer rate was so slow that each reduced photo took ages, so I went across the road to an internet cafe, which was 10 times as fast, and spent an hour uploading photos, only to find later I had done something wrong and they had all vanished. The Google blog software does not seem to be made for the purpose I'm trying to put it to, I cannot understand the terms used, and it is non-intuitive and complicated to use.
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