Southern Coast

We left Phnom Penh on a motorbike though we were really reluctant how is it going to be to ride a dirt road motorbike (no others seem to be available for rental). Since neither me nor Rita has ever sat on such a bike we had our concerns (mentioning the fact that we do not have a driving license for motorbikes should excuse our shyness). The rental agency guy sensed our reluctance and offered to teach us how to ride a bike in case we do not know how to do it - no problem just pay for the bike and off you go :) - it does not make you feel to confident about the skills of other participants of the traffic...

Anyway we decided to make life a bit more challenging and rented one bike instead of two - I became the lucky one to be the first to get the responsibility for acting us the "driver". We have not made more than 500 meters when on the first traffic lights Rita made me cross the red lights since as she put it "all the locals do it so I should not obstruct the traffic flow". A moment later we got stopped by the police and my driving license (for the car of course) got confiscated and a certain ransom was communicated to me...

Our trip all in all was a success - we enjoyed the south as it somehow felt it was just left to us (pretty much everyone else visiting Cambodia must have traveled to the north I guess). We have visited sleepy Kampot where we found the house in which my father used to live, forgotten Kep where we met the first real Hungarian during our trip (who has just opened a great Hungarian restaurant called Eldorado), went to Bokor Hill where we saw destruction and beauty of the nature in one and chilled on the beaches of premier beach resort in Cambodia - Sihanoukville. All in the span of five days.


There was something fascinating in each of the places - Kep because it could be a very successful resort town but there are so far no tourists there. We also had a great dinner there - eat a huge crab - our business with eating this beast took us two hours.

Bokor Hill due to the destruction of what used to be a beautiful hill station with a casino and a hilarious road there and in the end Sihanoukville with great accommodation and nice beaches. To Sihanoukville I arrived sitting on the back of the bike - Rita made the whole 150km trip. My task included finding a bungalow for us - so we safely arrived, I went into a hotel to check our place while Rita stayed sitting on bike - when I came back I found her right at the moment when she was falling together with the bike - Murphy's law I guess :) - she is alright so no needs to worry...

The road to the south was much more easy that we suspected - although we got lost since there are not too many signs on the roads we also managed to see beautiful country side, establish that 4-5pm is not the best time to be on the road since the cows, buffaloes and kids from school are heading home...and practice riding in torrential rain (you do not get cold since the temperature anyway does not drop below 30 degrees).

We got back to Phnom Penh where we made a fatal mistake as to what concerns visa issues...