Our bus left Phnom Penh bus station at 10am and after over 5 hours of awful Cambodian music (thank goodness for our iPods!) we arrived at Sihanoukville bus station. What we were greeted with can only be described as utter chaos! It started off fine, a tuk tuk driver approached Matt and asked where he wanted to go, when Matt told him he said it would cost $10 so Matt entered into the usual bartering to get a reasonable price. This ended abruptly when another driver strolled up and picked up our bags announcing he was taking us. Another man then started shouting and a full on argument ensued, all in Khmer so we had no clue what they were saying! Most of the time a normal calm conversation looks like they are arguing with each other to us but this time we could tell they really were, with a lot of arms flailing around and pointing. A third man then picked up my bag and started walking towards his car with it?! Meaning our stuff was just getting zig zagged across the car park. We were getting pretty sick of it and annoyed by this point so Matt decided to take control. He walked over and retrieved my bag which was then being carried off, then demanded that no one was to touch our bags until we knew exactly who was taking us! Seeing that Matt was quite angry, finally a man with a notebook came over and led us to yet another driver, explaining that he was next in line to have a job and that it would cost $8 to get to our hotel. We were so relieved to finally be leaving the bus station that we agreed and packed our bags into the boot of his car. It was only once we were on the road that we realised this was, in fact, the first car we had been in since arriving in Cambodia as we have always travelled around in tuk tuks so this felt like a real luxury! The driver then explained how they try to have a system and an order to the drivers so everyone gets a fair turn and it's not just a free for all, but to be honest a free for all would be better as it seems they couldn't organise a good knees up in a brewery! (To put it politely!)
 
It took about 15 minutes to get to our hotel and we were quickly checked in to a lovely little bungalow . As we had gotten closer to Otres 2, we could tell that the reviews hadn't been joking when they said it was quiet and away from everything as the number of people we could see dropped dramatically and the road turned into a dirt track! But that was what we had wanted, a few days of pure relaxation, and we were still only 15 minutes away from the main town and all the action.
 
On our first afternoon, we just went for a little wander around Otres 2 before stopping for a bite to eat at The Secret Garden on the beachfront and to watch the sunset in our beautiful new surroundings. In the evening, we jumped in a tuk tuk back to a bar called The Big Easy in the main tourist area of Sihanoukville so Matt could watch the first Arsenal game of the season! He was very excited about this as the only times he's been able to watch live football before is usually at 3 in the morning. I was rewarded for being such a lovely girlfriend with 2 for 1 Woo Woos and free Wifi so I was kept entertained during a game I think Matt would rather not have witnessed! His excitement was soon dampened as Arsenal played pretty badly and lost 3-1 . While we were there we had the most delicious meal we've had since arriving in Cambodia, so it was worth coming all that way just for that!
 
On our second day, we reverted to being the beach bums we had become in Australia! We walked along the beach for about 30 minutes to have a look at the slightly busier Otres 1 and stopped at a bar called Otres Corner for a drink and lounge on a giant chair! After chilling there for a few hours, we made our way back to Otres 2 and called in to The Secret Garden again to try some other yummy snacks on their menu and use their sun loungers for a while! In the evening, Matt wandered down to the only bar in Otres 2 with cable TV to watch the football, except their TV didn't have the sports channel he needed so he sat chatting with an American guy called DC who's from Washington (of course!). DC has lived here for 2 years and his English friend Rory has for 6! They both love the slow life and admit they could never go home again to a real job. After chatting for an hour he came back for me and we went out for dinner and drinks instead .
 
The rest of our stay followed a very simple pattern: have a lay in, get up and have breakfast then walk across the road and collapse on a sun lounger, either at The Secret Garden or Elephant Garden depending on which was less busy! While we laid there, we took it in turns to write blog entries and on one more energetic day, Matt went for a run along the beach and had a swim. Once we had had enough sun for the day, we either walked along the beach to Otres 1 or had lunch somewhere on Otres 2, chilled out at the hotel and got jobs done, like booking our flights to Kuala Lumpur, Matt's flight back to Perth and his accommodation there, or we went into Serendipity to have a look around the shops and have a drink in the bars. As this place is basically a long beach with a parallel dirt track road with hotels and bars along it, there really wasn't a lot to do but that was great as we didn't really want to do a lot anyway! If anything it was possibly a bit too quiet as it is now in rainy season so most of the hotels only have a few rooms being used whereas in the peak season they are all full . So we had come to a quiet place at a very quiet time! 

Despite it being so quiet, it seems you never can escape the ladies trying to sell you things or give you makeovers on the beach! I was talked into having my legs threaded after I got fed up of each of them walking up saying, "Oo lady, why your legs so hairy?" It was actually much more painful than I'd imagined so wasn't keen to get anything else done but my 'beautician' had other ideas and pushed me back to do my bikini line! Yes, that's right I was laid on a beach having my bikini line threaded! It's a good job it's so quiet here!! As I had both things done, she agreed to do Matt's toes for him for for free. He's not as good with hair pulling pain as me so he yelped out as she whipped his hair off. The big whimp!
 
Considering it was rainy season, we were so lucky with the weather. Apart from a couple of small showers overnight, we didn't have any rain until our last day when we were woken by torrential rain . By now our bodies were beginning to feel a little sore from the sun anyway so we were glad of a day indoors and it gave us a chance to clear out and rearrange our backpacks as well as uploading some photos to Facebook and work on the blog!
 
The only downside to this area is the facilities available at the hotels. They are all the same in Otres 2, with the exception of The Secret Garden which is a much more expensive resort style place, in that the rooms are only cooled by a fan not air conditioning making it pretty uncomfortable at night (thank goodness we were there during rainy season when the air is much cooler as I don't think we would have gotten any sleep at all in the heat of the dry season!) and the tap water is sourced by pumping it out of a deep pit in the sand so it is cold, has a brown colour and a slightly strange smell! It was okay for showering and washing your hair but we had to clean our teeth with bottled water and certainly wouldn't fancy drinking it! We didn't mind all of this though as, for us, it added to the feeling of getting away from it all and it was worth it for the peace and quiet! The other main thing we noticed about this area is that it's always windy! Not just a little breeze but very windy and all the time . Never before have we been somewhere with such consistently strong winds as it doesn't let up for a second, ever! This means you're always getting covered in sand on the beach and your hair is a mess as soon as your walk out the door but you soon get used to it and it definitely keeps you cool. 
 
Coming here was the perfect way to get away from all the hustle and bustle of the rest of Cambodia and a lovely way to end our travels as we were able to relax and reminisce on all the amazing things we have seen and done over the last eleven months. Although it's us that's done the traveling, we really can't believe how much we have packed into our time which made it a challenge to try to remember all the details about so many places. This led to lots of happy tears, as we thought about the places we've been and the people we've met and some sad ones too as it meant our amazing adventure was coming to an end and we would soon be going our separate ways for a couple of months.