Sihanoukville - what I've done and advise you to do

1. Have an excellent dish at the Starfish Bakery & Cafe

You can find this cute cafe in the center of Sihanoukville. It's kind of hidden but a tuk tuk can help you. It belongs to an NGO which employs disabled people and helps them with funds. Eating there you can be sure that you take part for a great cause, but you'll also enjoy an excellent food and a really nice staff.

http://www.starfishcambodia.org/

2. Rent a scooter for exploring

For only $5 per day, you can drive around Sihanoukville (avoid the city center and its corrupted police), along the beaches, from one beautiful spot to another, or further if you want to discover easily the surroundings.

We wish you good luck, if like for us, your scooter breaks randomly in the middle of nowhere.

3. Swim in the Kbal Chhay Waterfall

We find the waterfalls by chance looking at an advertisement in front of a travel agency. It was a small picture, lost among those of more famous places to visit. We ask if it's as interesting and beautiful as it seems on the picture. We're informed that the waterfalls are not so far from Otres Beach (our area).

We decide to go, driving our scooter first on a consequent national road, then on a straight and long red earth one.

In the middle of the way, you have to stop and pay $1 (per head) to reach the waterfalls.

These $1 are more than worth it as we arrive in a place where we are the only white people among hundreds of (mostly) Cambodian tourists.

The scene is enchanted. The ground, as you can see on the pictures, just consists in huge stones, half under clear water, and everywhere are singing waterfalls. The people, adults, teens, children, play and chill, wet and completely dressed but barefoot. Almost every girls have a colorful flowers crown, which gives even more a magical aspect to the place.

It looks like a natural attraction park with a mood I never felt before.

We swim and chill there until an heavy rain starts and empties the site.

4. Enjoy the Ream National Park and around

For the next day, we book a tour to visit the Ream National Park. It's a bit expensive for us, as it costs $50 for 2.

On the morning of the tour day, we arrive at the office where we're told that we're the only customers today, so the company doesn't make the circuit. The owner of the tour office proposes to make us a tour by himself with his own minivan, his friend and his dog. We accept, kind of skeptical and still a bit disappointed.

We reach the park and cross it by car. We stop then at a small wooden house, near a pier.

As there's some tiny and typical boats at the pier, our driver and guide, Mr. Yeat, proposes us a promenade. Even though it looks frightening, as the place where we have to sit is really close to the water, we say yes. As expected, the boat is everything but stable and we can see through some holes in the wood under us, which is not releasing at all.

But once again, accepted it was worth it. The landscape around us definitely deserves to be on a postcard. I can truly say that I enjoy the sight of the forest, the diversity of trees, the mangroves, the mountains, and the few houses far away, as we stay for few minutes locked in the middle of the water, as the engine doesn't want to turn on anymore. While the craft is waltzing from right to left, and the water threats us to inundate, we tell ourselves that's a surprising adventure

We leave the boat and drive to Chinese Beach, nearby. It's a splendid stretch of white sand, sprinkled by some rocks and surrounded by the National Park vegetation.

We know that you can often see dolphins here, so we try our best to keep searching, unfortunately in vain.

It's time for lunch, we go back to the first wooden house, where the women inside are preparing our food.

And the main dish of the day is ... Frogs !

Not the little frogs, French people sometimes eat (not me!). These ones are pretty big and were caught in the wild few minutes earlier during their "honeymoon" as Cambodians say. Sympathique !

As you can guess, I'm waiting for it with enthusiasm. I feel bad to say no, so I hold my breath and crunch in the leg of this poor fried grenouille.

Finally, people who already told me it tastes like chicken, were right. If nobody tells you it's frog meat, for you it's gonna be automatically chicken .

The problem is, someone told me.

5. Play with the monkeys in the Wat Leu (by Tobias)

After our bizarre and delicious lunch (more bizarre than delicious), we are leaving the Ream National Park to head back to the town of Sihanoukville. Passing the busy streets of the city center and after following curved roads through a forest, we arrive at a picturesque temple located right at the top of a hill. From here you have a fantastic view over Sihanoukville and its surroundings to the islands of Koh Rong. But you won't enjoy the view too long, because there is something else drawing your attention to it.... and it is not the temple.

When we arrive at the temple, we see several animals running around, but we can't identify them until we are close enough. MONKEYS! In the trees, on the stupa, on top of the buildings, simply everywhere around the temple are groups of monkeys! Some younger groups linger around like bandits on a street corner, while there's big families from young to old sitting on the stairs together.

Don't be afraid to approach them, because they aren't. They will come right in front of you, seeing what you are up to and if you are willing to either play or give them food. Be also very careful with your bag, because these monkeys over there are sneaky and they'll steel whatever they can get.

As they are not afraid of humans, we have the best time playing and joking around with them or simply watching their behavior within the families.

Having so much fun with these cute and hilarious animals, we even forget to have a look at the Temple itself, so the main reason to go here is definitely the monkeys.