I could not have timed my G Adventures tour any better, heading to Sihanoukville for New Years Eve along with the King and Prime Minster of Cambodia must mean its a good place to celebrate the New Year.
We arrived to Sihanoukville the day before NYE at lunchtime and literally checked into the room and jumped straight into a tuk tuk to Otres Beach to spedt the afternoon there. We chilled on the beach drinking mojitos, paddle boarding and swimming in the sea.
We then headed back to the hotel (but had ordered to tuk tuk too early and wished we had longer on the beach!), some of the girls were tired so went to bed, but me and Hayley wanted to explore. We headed to the main Sihanoukville beach to watch the sunset. We went for a really long walk along the beach and still had time before dinner and were starting to feel peckish and were craving spring rolls. We found a restaurant that sold them so sat on the beach sharing a plate of spring rolls drinking a mojito each.
We had to meet the group for dinner at 7pm, our guide had told us that it was a seafood BBQ we were going to and he hadn’t stopped raving about it. We were all really excited and the way he explained it to us was that we would be having our own private BBQ on the beach. Anyway, we all met and walked back into town towards the beach, Hayley and I joked on route that it would be funny if we were taken to the restaurant we had just come from, and then stopped right outside the restaurant where had just come from……. LOL!
So there we were back at the same restaurant, this was not the seafood BBQ we had been promised, just a restaurant that had a BBQ attached to it where you could order seafood – least we knew the spring rolls tasted good! Anyway, myself and Charlotte shared a BBQ seafood platter which was tasty, but not as good as expected!
Everyone else went to bed as still feeling ill, so me and Hayley chilled in a bar drinking a mango lassi – wild night for us!
The next day was NYE and our boat trip was the activity for the day. Breakfast was included in the trip but we had decided we wanted to go to a vegan café for breakfast that we had discovered the day before. This was the best decision ever as the breakfast included was awful as they had run out of everything and service was appalling. You can read a separate post all about the amazing breakfast here.
The boat trip was such fun, we were first taken to the edge of an island where we got to jump in the sea and do some snorkelling, not gonna lie it wasn’t as impressive as the Great Barrier Reef, but nothing is going to top that. However I just love being in the sea, swimming around with the fishes and jumping off the side of the boat.
Next stop was to a secluded island where we were to spend the majority of the day. Here we sunbathed and had a delicious lunch provided too. It was so nice to spend the day chilling in the sunshine and catching a tan. We then got back on the boat to head to another place for some snorkelling and swimming before heading back to shore.
We arrived back on land and decided to go for a massage before the madness of NYE. I had a 45 minute full body massage and then treated myself to a manicure and a pedicure all for £7.50 – bargain!
Then it was time for the madness of NYE in Sihanokville. We had some drinks at the hotel as we were told we were meeting our guide at 7pm but he never showed up….. we headed out for a late dinner as a group on the beach and then headed to some bars which were already starting to get full. We wandered along the sea front and the atmosphere was crazy there were people everywhere! Before we knew it, it was nearly midnight so we pushed our way onto the beach right at the front. You could buy fireworks from anyone, so literally anyone and everyone was letting them off on the beach, it was crazy (and maybe slightly dangerous looking back a it now!) and it wasn’t even midnight yet. Then midnight struck and there were fireworks going off everywhere! The whole thing was incredible and something I will never forget! My little crew and I set off a lantern (after 2 failed attempts), which was really cute.
We headed to bed not long after midnight as we had an early start to cross the boarder into Vietnam.
– all views are my own