Woke up sometime after 8AM. We did some research into diving centers around town then decided to walk to some of the shops. We hit up the Dive Shop first, which had their main base of operations in Sihanoukville but did their training and had accommodations out on the island of Koh Rong Sanloem. After talking with them, we hit up Titanic cafe for breakfast based on the recommendation of the woman at The Dive Shop. The place was delicious and cheap, highly recommend for breakfast. Mat took a photo of me enjoying breakfast as a cow walked down the sidewalk behind me. We discussed our diving options over breakfast. Since the second diving outfit we liked was based on the Island of Koh Rong (therefore we were unable to pop by) and third diving outfit was based solely in Sihanoukville (taking a boat out every morning to dive then come back in to sleep in town), we decided to go with the Dive Shop as we wanted to spend our spare time relaxing on the island.
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| Cow walking down the street during breakfast |
We rushed back to our hotel to check out before the noon deadline. We reserved a room online at the highly rated but cheap Coolabah Hotel then proceeded to move our stuff to the new hotel, which was practically across the street from the Dive Shop. After settling into our room, we strolled over to sign up for our Open Water Scuba certification. It was $445 per person for open water certification but it included a free ferry ride to the island and back, lunches, breakfast for the early days, and free accommodation in their bunkhouse. Being an older, married couple we opted to stay at the nearby Robinson resort; the offered rustic-style bungalows without electricity for $15 per night. Should be interesting and a lot of fun! $100 deposit and we were all squared
away.
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| View from the Coolabah Hotel |
After that was all settled, we walked down the street looking for some new sunglasses for Mat as he seemed to misplace his. Lucky for him there were guys on the street holding large trays of sunglasses for sale. Mat proceeded to try on a few pairs while I turned down persistent offers for bracelets and tuk-tuk rides. He settled on a pair of 'high quality' Ray Bans then we grabbed a motor tuk-tuk to Otres beach where we walked along the sand. The beach was riddled with lots of tiny holes and sand clumps from tiny crabs clearing out their dens, lots of Khmer around trying to sell stuff to tourists. We sat down on a cluster of tree roots to slather our white, pasty selves in sunscreen, admiring a giant green snail shell nearby before we got nailed on the feet by tiny fire ants living amongst the tree roots. We backtracked along the beach to get some delicious pizza, drinks, and people watch at Papa Pippos. Some high schooler church group showed up; it was entertaining watching the kids enjoy themselves in the ocean. Eventually, we joined them in the water, it was bathtub warm, so amazing!
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| The Golden Lions of Sihanoukville |
After the sun went down, we grabbed a tuk-tuk back to our hotel. He stopped at a shanty home shack along the way where he paid a guy to fill up his gas tank with petrol that was stored in canola oil bottles. We didn't even realize what was going on until he started dumping the yellow liquid into the gasoline tank. Back at the hotel, we cleaned up for a fancy dinner at Sandan, a nice restaurant serving local food teaching young people the ins and outs of the service industry. It was a very tasty meal. A kind of beef curry and a salad with glass noodles. Dessert was caramelized black sticky rice with ginger ice cream and fruit, very tasty! Back to the hotel to relax and start packing for an early morning departure while listening to the air thumping with bar music.
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| Papa Pippo's on Otres Beach |
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