Every day I walk past this swing and everyday I want to get a photo on it but either I’m the only one on the beach (if that could ever be a bad thing?) or I don’t have my camera. Today I was neither and the girls and I had a field day playing on these.

Ladies walk around with baskets on their head, lapping the beaches with fresh fruit and king prawns. I was so intrigued cause they are the most ginormous things I’ve ever seen. 50cents prawn too cheap not to sample. She cut the top shell off, covered it in this delicious Cambodian pepper mix and generous amounts of lime, and voila! Delicious! I should have taken her up on the 10 for $5 deal cause I later ate the spiciest tom yum soup of my life where I mistook a chilli for a capsicum, eyes watering at the table and heart burn to follow.

Now this is living Barry with the best seats in the house and the best pineapple juice of my life.

The walk home

After seeing a fair bit of rural and real Cambodia here is very different and designed for tourists. It’s great having beach bars and bamboo chairs and all that inbetween, but people won’t get the full idea of Cambodia if they were to just come here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in love with it here, head over heels. Once docked (thank god, the ride home I had to sit facing the horizon the entire time) the two girls said they were going to walk home rather than get a tuk tuk, I was itching to lay down on dry, non-moving land but I thought why not, I hadn’t seen much of this side, we walked the entire length of serendipity beach, past the deck chairs, and abandoned bars, and further on we started seeing where all the sales men, women and children sleep; in hammocks barley covered by traps on the beach further down, i immediately felt awful for them for having to endure the storm last night (and all the others). The further we got down the beach the more polluted it got. And then I discovered why, this village is running directly into the beach on this side. Note the photo the evident line between brown and blue waters. I was thankful our beautiful beach was over and around the headland quiet a deal further up, but it was a real contrast.

We had to get as a smaller boat to shore, lunch supplies and all and this was legitimately the closest I’ve been to capsizing in a boat filled with 30 others. The seas were so rocky and the boat wasn’t fantastic that with each sway of the waves those sitting on the sides almost had gushes of water coming over onto their laps. We had people jumping out and swimming to shore, I would have done the same though I had my camera and it was raining so my priority second to my life was not getting it wet. We arrived to shore, bodies and towels soaking wet and had a small hut were we had to reside for the next 2 and a half hours instead of lounging in these colourful chairs and soaking up the sun. Beers were being cracked and pity parties thrown. I would have gone swimming as it was warmer in the water than onland but my clothes and towel were soaking wet and I would have been colder than what I’d started out as. The fresh fish,salad and rice when down and absolute treat and then I wandered the island collecting shells with Silvia and Mia, two German girls I met.

Because of the storms the visibility for snorkelling was terribly poor, but the water was refreshing and so salty that I floated with ease and finally started to feel better. And then those storm clouds that were looming finally caught up with us. Pouring with rain we made our way flour stop I number two and our BBQ lunch island.

I have never been bad with sea sickness (I slept on the top of a boat for 8 nights and wasn’t slightly seasick at all) but today was the worst feeling of my life. We had a big storm at 4:30 last night, I lay away counting the gaps and it was scarily close. The power cut for 4 hours (a regular occurrence here). Thinking they’d maybe not take the boats, but the sun was peeping out at 8am here, so we set off. After breakfast the winds had picked up and when it can time to board the boat, it was rocking uncomfortably too much side to side. I made a comment saying “I hope no one gets sea sick..” We’ll that shot me right in the foot. I then commenced the worst 40 minutes of my life. The over crowded boat slowly made its way to the first island, storm clouds looming and I sat on the side considering swimming to shore because anywhere was better than the feeling of almost hurling your breakfast off the side of the boat for 40 minutes. Driving over a change in currents and a swim stop was my saving grace.

Ortres beach (despite the current cloud cover) is an absolute prime sunset viewing platform, coming to you live from a beach lounge under a bamboo umbrella.