Taking a vacation from our vacation

  Sihanoukville, Cambodia
Thursday, October 18, 2007

I don't really know what you would call this past week... I think we took a vacation, which of course sounds absurd considering that we are on vacation.  But yeah, we just got back from vacation.

So after leaving Thailand without exploring the beach scene (if you can't remember our description of Thailand, just think of Cancun spring break but with high schoolers) we were left still craving a little bit of ocean.  We had heard there was a little happening beach town in the south of Cambodia and decided to continue with the general theme of the trip- 'sure, why not?'  It's been a pretty sweet saying because really, what can't you do when your automatic response is 'why not?'.  And that's how we ended up in Sihanoukville, Cambodia.

Arriving was pretty standard.  As the bus pulls up to the bus station, or piece of sidewalk more realistically, about twenty tuk-tuk drivers swarm the bus and push each other out of the way to be the first to talk to you.  "TUK-TUK! Want a tuk-tuk lady? One dollar!"  :::heard in the background: '50 cent lady, 50 cent for tuk-tuk lady!':::   At which point you turn back to your original guy. "50 cent, yes yes, no problem, 50 cent."  And there you have a ride to some

Standard beautiful sunset on the beach picture

guesthouse, though you're never really sure where you'll end up until they finally drop you off.  We had met a cool Canadian chic on the bus and the three of us went in our 50-cent tuk-tuk to a really nice set of bungalows just a two minute walk from the beach.  After agreeing on a price with the owner, which by the way, I think my trading skills have actually improved since I've stopped trading... there are absolutely no set prices anywhere here, anyways, so after that we went off to the beach to watch the sunset and explore.  This place is funny, there are so many little bungalow bar establishments all along the backpacker beach that they all have different gimmicks to get you to stay there.  Free beer with dinner, $0.50 drafts... some places even offered free accomodation as long as you had a couple of meals there!  As cheap as we've been though, we decided to stick to our $5 bungalows which were nice and came with a mosquito net (VERY necessary down here). 

The next day we walked up and down the beach and realized why there were so many bars-

Don't worry, we waited till noon to start drinking

there is absolutely nothing to do!  The snorkelling just off the beach is pretty barren and the ocean was so calm that there's no chance to play and body surf.  So, like responsible adults we walked and played cards until noon and then at 12:02 precisely decided it was okay to have a cocktail.  We walked over to one of the bars that seemed pretty happening and joined the crowd. Turns out the guys at the bar were all locals, Westerners who came here on a business visa ($75), bought a bar ($4,000), and then spent the entire time getting drunk at their friends' bars.  One of the guys had bought his bar six months ago and only opened it a handful of times. 'I like when other people give me drinks,' was his answer.

Did I mention the word vacation?

Umm... who doesn't?! They were hysterical though, and really nice and friendly.  In the middle of all of this, one of the guys' regular massage lady came and he got his daily massage.  He even added another massage to his tab and treated me to one as well (he had a massage tab... imagine that) so I had a pretty fantastic hour drinking my cocktail and getting a massage on the beach.

After our productive day we decided we should probably do something to help our livers the

Just before our boat trip

next day so we hooked up with the Canadian chic again and signed up for a boat trip for the following day.  What a good decision... We met the next morning and eight of us climbed into our boat.  This thing had wooden planks all along the bottom and one life jacket thrown in the back for show.  It's exactly what you'd picture when you picture Southeast Asia.

Random's camera is fun!

But it was perfect for us and we took off to the mostly deserted islands just off the coast.  A stop for some snorkelling (it wasn't Puerto Rico but it was pretty cool) and then a pit stop at Bamboo island for a few hours.  We went with the other kids in the boat all the way to the other side of the island where there was absolutely no one else and spent a few hours just hanging out n the water.  Turns out most of the kids traveling were teaching English in other Asian countries.

Our private beach

If you're interested... you can make the most money in Vietnam, the least money in China, and Korea is in between.  After a bbq fish lunch on the beach we headed back for some more snorkelling and got dropped off back at main beach just in time for happy hour.

After a quick rinse-off we all met back at one of the $0.50 draft places to continue where we left off.  Within a minute of sitting, we were swarmed with bracelet sellers, book sellers, lobster sellers, etc etc.

Playing with the locals on the beach

So while enjoying the sunset we haggled with the little kids whose sales pitches ranged from crying to insisting as many bracelets as they happened to have on them.  They are witty though, some of them speak more languages than we do!  After most of the annoying kids petered out, a few stayed and hung out with us so we bought a few lobsters for them and had friends for the rest of the night.  After the six of us (the little kids were called in for bedtime at this point)

Yummmy dinner

and enjoyed a beach-side bbq.  Random went for the squid and prawn and barracuda on a plate, whereas I thought I'd stay conservative and just order a red snapper. I got a red snapper all right... straight out of the ocean, thrown on the grill, and put on my plate.  It was delicious and just to make you jealous... for fresh fresh seafood and beers we all paid less than $4 a person.  Life is pretty sweet.

After all this, we were just in time for happy hour at our bungalows... $0.25 drafts for an hour.  We couldn't really pass this up so after one more beer at home we lowered our mosquito net and waited for the hangover to kick in.  One more day on the beach and then back up to Phnom Penh.