I’m writing this after a great bottle of wine a few days after visiting this interesting port. Why is it interesting? Well as you might know already Cambodia isn’t the richest and developed countries in the world and today we got to see that first hand. We hadn’t booked any tours as it was either a 4hr drive to Phnom Pen or a trip around the town for a fair bit of money that we didn’t think was worth it.

So off the boat we went towards the gates of this small port and we weren’t ready for what met us. Before we had even got to the gates we had been ask if we wanted to go into the port on the back of a motorbike, one maybe two and someone riding it, erm no. So we got to the gates to the port to see 30 or 40 people vying for our attention to take us into the town. We were offered a ride in a car, on a bike or more times than we could care to mention heard the sound tuk tuk, tuk tuk. Now I don’t think we were prepared for this as we though we could just walk into the town but it appeared not. So what do we do?- well we found a decent bloke who spoke great English and stepped aboard his tuk tuk for the journey into the town after a good bit of bartering. It was a bit nervy as this is no UK road network that we are travelling on but it was good fun and interesting to say the least. But when we got into the town that’s when the real fun started… the market. (Sorry will have to regain my thoughts, just came back from winning the Wii Sports Tournament in the Viking crown lounge and indulged in a bit of dancing in the Centrum on the way back…) now where was I… Ahh yes the market, well lets picture the scene- there are loads of people milling about going about their day, there is rubbish on the streets and the place looks in a fairly bad state of repair to say the very least. We stepped into the market to find a fairly pungent smell, ah and then there was the beggar with one leg, the first of three we saw. On getting towards the back of the market that sold all sorts, it was almost a flee market, was the fish and oh my god did it stink. Old fish, alive fish dried out and in temperatures close to 35degrees you can imagine the smell. Well my better half had had enough so we hot footed it back to our tuk tuk…

We decided not to stay around in the town as there really wasn’t anything to buy or to see and we didn’t feel too safe either, it really did feel like a third world country. We got our driver to take us down to the beach for a quick look round and then to take the scenic route back to the boat. An hour and a half later we were back safe and sound and only $20 lighter (including a $5 tip for getting us back in one piece) rather than $90 if we had taken the tour to do pretty much the same thing but far less fun. Don’t take this as a bad day it wasn’t, it was a big reason as to why we came to Asia to see other countries and see how other people live. We all complain about the UK and what it has and hasn’t got but oh my should we appreciate that we have got SOOOOOOOO much more than we do, the UK is a fantastic place to live even if it does get a bit cold from time to time. Mind you I think they have the happiness / work life balance thing sorted maybe we can work on that, 4 day week anyone???