Sun and sand in Sihanoukville

A town full of facets and faces contrasting
From icky and ugly to views everlasting
The multi-lane highway that ends in dirt road
Meet sand, sun and water, the trifecta, behold

SIHANOUKVILLE, CAMBODIA

July 14, 2008

Sihanoukville. What can I say about Sihanoukville except that it was a wonderful getaway from Kep?

It started interestingly enough. In Cambodia, depending on where you need to go, it can be cheaper to grab a seat in a share taxi than it is to take the bus. It's also much faster, and can shave hours off your travel time. Since this was the case to Sihanoukville, TH, Peon 1 and I arranged for three seats in a share taxi. The taxi seats 8 people. And no, it's not a van. It's a car. As in a five seater. There's a reason why share taxi is cheaper than bus, even though it's faster: and that reason is comfort. The car, which is just an old Corolla, sits four in the back (fine, but a tight fit, not comfy at all), and four in the front (hm...that's a more interesting predicament). Here are the three of us squished in the back of a share taxi.


In other words, it's Cambodian ridiculosity. Two people sit in the front passenger seat, while one extra person sits to the left of the driver. Still not understanding? Maybe this picture of the front will clear things up.


Like I said...craziness. It took about 2.5 hours in the car to get to Si-ville, and I got to see more countryside, which is always interesting. I remember thinking, while on the road, that when John and I were in China, I tried to get all these photos of the Chinese countryside while in various trains, and it was so interesting. In many ways, though, I've become desensitised to rural life, because it's where I've been living for the last seven weeks. It no longer seems strange or foreign. But picture-worthy either way -- though I have to remind myself to take pictures quite often.

We arrived in Si-ville by 8:30 am, nice and early, and found a guesthouse right on the beach, checked in, and proceeded to camp out on the beach and soak in the sun. We ordered fruit shakes from a restaurant so that we could use their beach chairs for the day, and worked on getting rid of the horrible farmer tans.

Mmm...mango pineapple shake...for a dollar...

The beach itself was really nice looking. I missed getting some pictures of the more rocky parts, unfortunately, because I was distracted by the basking and swimming, but it was really nice. The beach we hung out at was Occheuteal Beach, and though there were a lot of people around, I was glad that we'd come on a weekday, because it wasn't overrun with tourists.



The sun was ridiculously hot (the weather in Cambodia is always hovering somewhere around 35 deg C), but I sweated through it because I really wanted to work on my tan. And luckily, a quick dip in the ocean solved that problem. And the water wa so warm, that my tropical father wouldn't even have thought twice before dunking his head in.


It was so nice, just floating in the water, on the waves -- except that boats sometimes come in really near to the shore, like this stupid motor boat called the banana boat, which pulls a floating blow up thing and rides around near the shore trying to get people to pay him to ride on the thing. So dangerous and noisy. But otherwise, good.


Another highlight was the beach food. I thought street food was awesome -- but beach food, which gets brownie points for its novelty and orginality, it even awesomer. Women walk around selling all sorts of food, from lobster...


...to Viet-style spring rolls and deep fried taro...


,..to yummy coconut desserts (which I unfortunately didn't get a picture of), to grilled squid, noodle soup, peanuts, roasted corn, and fruits. And everything gets carried by these vendors. The grilled things aren't even grilled ahead of time -- they just walk around with a can full of coals and grill it right in front of you.

They're also selling all sorts of things; the women all walk around trying to massage you, give you manicures, pedicures, threading (hair removal -- I even saw a woman getting her bikini line threaded right on the beach), and kids are selling trinkets of every kind. The threading women come right up to you and start touching you -- one lady I had a lot of trouble getting rid of, and she spent five minutes stroking my thigh, telling me I had such nice skin, but that it's such a shame I've got so much leg hair. No sense of personal space here.

Peon 1 definitely enjoyed it. She ended up getting her legs threaded -- but every time you look at her, the hawkers are crawling all over her! I think she's just too friendly to them.


(And as an update, we're getting along just fine. She's still difficult to work with, but in a social setting, I'm actually really enjoying her company, and I was glad that she came to Si-ville with us.)

We spent the entire day on the beach, and then, just before dinner, we accidentally missed the sunset, because TH and I were watching TV (!) in the room. It was a total pimped out room -- we had A/C, hot water and a TV! It's nuts. BUt...that's why we got distracted with House reruns. Dinner was at a backpacker restaurant called Oasis, where I had sweet potato fries (amazing -- and a huge plate for a dollar) and Khmer tofu amok. The food was really good, but the portions were way too big, and I was stuffed. Plus it was cheap, which was a nice add-on. For dessert, we headed across the street for deep fried bananas and coconut ice cream...mmm...I am salivating just remembering that...