Our travel preparations also included all the vaccinations. You can only get the yellow fever vaccination from the health department. There was Ivar (I've had mine since 2017 or so. You only get vaccinated once and have lifelong protection). In any case, a trainee was apparently allowed to give the injection, while two ladies from the health department watched over and peppered Ivar with questions. They were probably very indignant that we don't have an impregnated mosquito net (that's simply a mosquito net impregnated with an agent that repels mosquitoes) and no vaccination against dengue fever (it's been around since 2023, but is controversial). When Ivar came home after the vaccination, he said that we were going to die because we didn't do so much.
Since then, we have had a running joke when we eat in a food stall or have a mosquito bite: "If the ladies at the health department knew that!"
On Sunday, November 5th, we were where the pepper grows. We took a tour of a pepper plantation. We were able to try different types of pepper (green, red, black) and various creations (pepper coated with salt or smoked pepper). There are the round peppercorns we know and there are elongated peppers. We didn't know about it before! Particularly good pepper grows in Kampot, which is probably very well known. This is how pepper grows!
In the evening I felt well and actually, after 100th food stalls with questionable hygiene, dinner went through my head in the wrong direction a second time. The ladies from the health department would now wisely shake their heads and say “Tststs” or “we told you so!” say.
In fact, I've been waiting to see which of us will have stomach (intestinal) problems for the first time! I didn't expect that we would last this long! The night was unpleasant, but it was okay. I recovered very quickly and in the morning I ate an apple. We wanted to move on today anyway. All the bookings have already been made! At around 11 a.m. we drove towards Sihanoukville. We were wondering why, according to Google Maps, it should take almost 3 hours to cover 100 km. The path initially started with asphalt. Everything was okay. But then a mogul slope started. For 25km! We were driving around 10 km/h. There wasn't anything more possible for us because we were jumping around so much! It was extremely tiring. Every now and then we stopped. Once we took a long break with coffee and tea. Absolute horror route!
At a junction there was asphalt again and everything was okay. Except for the trucks. We took a different route that was supposed to take a few minutes longer, but there were no more trucks. The route went along the coast and would have been very nice if it hadn't been raining heavily.
Unfortunately my scooter is a bit sensitive to water and will eventually stop. Has happened before. Only it was in the middle of Sihanoukville and the city is anything but beautiful. It is full of big houses, casinos, huge hotels, big cars and department stores. The Chinese population likes to come here for vacation. Therefore everything is in both Khmer and Chinese script. We can read even less. The city is full, has a lot of unfinished buildings and stinks. Worst city we've been to so far. We would avoid it if we didn't have to take a ferry here. At some point the scooter started again and we drove to our hotel "Villa Blue Lagoon". We only want to stay here for one night and then take the ferry to the island of Koh Rong Sanloem the next day. We were kindly allowed to leave our scooters on the grounds of Villa Blue Lagoon. In the evening we ate at a Chinese restaurant. The waitress and the guy from the supermarket we went to after dinner spoke Chinese. At least Ivar understood a few things. So the next day we took the ferry to the island of Koh Rong Sanloem.
We arrived and so did the rain. It's supposed to be dry season!
The rain stopped and it became beautiful! Full 4 days very nice! We read a lot, swam and visited different beaches. Some beaches had white sand, one had yellow. Everyone had a lot of trash away from the hotels, where employees don't rake. Unfortunately. Lazy beach with yellow sand Saracen Beach with white sand
One evening we got drunk with 2 other tourists and a few employees from the surrounding hotels. We played Jenga, UNO and then a Colombian version of Jenga called Jungle Jenga, which was much more difficult! Since we haven't drunk much alcohol since the start of our trip (a beer every now and then, but hello! The fresh fruit juices are simply better here!) we also had a corresponding hangover afterwards.
Once we went to a lighthouse. Midday. That's how you do it, right? Nice uphill! When you arrived at the lighthouse you were allowed to climb up the 6 ladders (there were no stairs, just ladders that led to one level, where you then took the next ladder. All in all, an adventure in itself). There was a great view at the top! It's just that we were stupid. Very dumb. We didn't have enough water with us. So we had to go back early at some point. It turned out to be lucky because we arrived at the beach with a thunderstorm and therefore in a sheltered restaurant. One evening I went on a boat tour to look at glowing plankton. Since the plankton only glows when it moves, it's best to swim through. And it looks fabulous underwater! It's like swimming through hundreds of stars! On November 12th our ferry went back to Sihanoukville. We picked up our scooters and headed down the coast. Our next stop is Chrouy Svay. A small village with nothing interesting except nature and the sea 12km away.
In the evening we went out for dinner. Since the sun sets at 5:40 p.m., it gets dark early. I saw a small movement out of the corner of my eye, although I was distracted by the angry barking of a dog. But I still looked at the ground and stopped just in front of a palm-sized scorpion. He was already retreating into the bushes, but we almost got in each other's way. Then the headlamp was unpacked and turned on. Thank you for the lamp, dear sister!
In general, dogs only bark at us when we are on foot! Nobody has barked at us on the scooter yet! As if they were irritated by pedestrians! However, the saying “keep your mouth shut” seems to apply to dogs. As soon as you get closer to the barking bullies, they dodge or run away.
