So we've finally caught up! All blogs up to date, bags packed, last game of gin rummy played (and won by me...) and so we're ready to leave. Here anyway.
The last 16 days of our holiday have been spent here, in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. And it has been very pleasant indeed. Sihanoukville itself seems to be a town made of a few reasonably close beaches, with hotels, restaurants and bars crowding round the seafront, all fairly busy. The main beach especially is, and that's where we stayed for the first few nights with our old pal Jonboy.
After leaving Mui Ne it was hard to imagine anywhere where we'd be as happy. Or anywhere that would have a beach as nice, seafood as nice etc. But time says you've got to keep moving on and we did. We arrived at night after 12 hours, so the first impression is never something to rely on completely, but easy enough we found a hotel to dump the bags and get changed.
The hotel was right on the beach and we payed $15 a night for all 3 of us, so $5 a night, for a raised bungalow. It had a view through low trees of the beach which started at the front of reception. So far, so good!
We went out for a bite to eat, and were happily surprised when we found all the restaurants offered BBQs for $3 a person, meat, chips, garlic bread and a salad! 35p a beer aint too bad either... We liked Sihanoukville from the off. We spent the first night drinking, smoking and playing pool (which seems to be a theme of our holiday...) And then, luckily! We bumped into our friend, the Doctor!
So the remainder of the night was spent laid out on our balcony, chilling and hanging around with him and ended magnificently with a good old fashion kotch. We were up til 6, just talking and listening to music. Kels went to bed at 4, which was clearly the sensible option, as by this time Jon and I couldnt see. But we struggled through another 2 hours, and climbed into bed jsut as the sun was coming up and the room was getting hot.
After a few hours of sweaty-betty sleep, we dragged ourselves up, jumped in a Tuk-Tuk and headed to a beach, just outside town, called Otres Beach. This beach was superb. White sand as far as you can see, a few beach bars along the coast and water so clear you could see the bottom at least 10 metres around you. We laid there all day just relaxing and eating fresh seafood.
Then we decided that we should massively go out. It was meant to be one of Jon's last nights and we didnt want to waste anytime. We started at a restaurant, i dont know which, and followed from there to a bar called JJ's. It's jsut an average little bar here, but apparently one of the only ones on the beach not to sell food, so there's more room for dancing. Now, when we went out on that night we were dressed in our best clothes, not thinking there would be UV paint everywhere (i know, you think we'd learn that in Asia there's UV paint everywhere). And after a couple of hours drinking and dancing in JJs our cloths were ruined. Now we were well on the way to being drunk, and we started playing with the little local kids and ended with Jon and I jousting with little kids on our back. Dont worry, they loved it!
We headed then into Utopia, which is the biggest club thing here in Sihanoukville, which isnt saying much. We did shots, were drinking heavily and playing pool, (as always!) with the game of the night being Kelsey vs. Prostitute, where the hooker started well and then Kels turned up the heat and saw her off. But all's well that ends well, Jon got a free night with her!
I'm so joking!
Kels and I left around about 4:30 and we thought Jon wouldnt be too late, but when i woke up at 9ish he wasnt there. Being the proactive person i am, i dragged myself onto the deck to wait. By 10 he hadnt come back and Kels was still asleep so i went out for a coffee, and to check my emails, and when i got back around 11 there he was in his bed. He'd been playing pool and drinking for the whole time! Good man! But it does show you that he's a bad influence...
The next day we decided that as last night was a big one, we'd just go back to Otres Beach, then come back to the hotel, look for a nice local meal, Jon would book his bus and we'd go to a little cinema in town.
We got to the beach again, and were walking along when we had the idea to stay on this beach instead of going back to town everyday. A lot of the places had little signs saying "room" so we decided to take a look.
The first one we looked at sold it for us completely.
It was the upstairs of a place called 'I Don't Know Bar'. When you first walked in to the room you knew it was basic, it had a double bed, standing fan, and the old fabric squares like you used to have in primary school for the floors. But we didnt mind one bit. Along with that, the room had two massive sheet iron windows, which had clearly just been cut out of a wall, but when they were open it was like having one wall as a window, and out of that window was the beach. Just sitting 15 foot below us. It also had a little table and 2 chairs, but we nicked another table so it was set up. We also were getting the whole room for $4 a night, for both of us. that's 120 pennies each for a night. we booked for the whole next week.
When Jon came back from booking his bus, he told us that instead of going tomorrow night, he was actually going to leave the day after (wehay!) so he was going to stay on Otres Beach too, and ended up in the same place as us.
We then made our way back into town, for the cinema, as it was Jon's last night. The cinema was like renting someones front room. Big comfy seats, table, mini fridge and a 52" TV with a selection of films. Bang tidy! We watched The Other Guys and Rise of Planet of the Apes. During which Kelsey saw the first 10 minutes of The Other Guys and the last 2 mins of Planet of the Apes. Typical! We ended up paying $3 a person for the night!
The next day was a sad one. We had to say goodbye, finally, to Jon.
We'd been together now for 19 days from Hoi An all the way to Mui Ne, Saigon and finally Sihanoukville. We were told that whilst travelling you would meet a few people on the same route as you who you'll probably see time and time again in different places. We just got lucky that it was a hero like Jon Forbes.
The remainder of our time here in Sihanoukville, has been one long, very happy, very chilled out holiday, with a few stand out bits to mention.
For a started Gin Rummy. We cant get enough.
It's a game i've always known how to play, as it's one of the only card games our family knows, and also Mum and Dad told me about when they were younger travelling through Europe they used to sit for hours and play Gin, and Kels and I took up that tradition happily!
Kels had just learnt at first so naturally it was a white wash... But now, with at least 30 hours of Gin in the last week and a half, it's an even game. Every now and again she'll put anything she wants down and just smile, to be reminded that 3,6,8, isnt a run. We've had a few brilliant nights with a bottle of red wine, 2 packs of Oreos and Adele's new album (dont judge us, she's an angel) and a 1001 game of Gin. It will probably be how i remember Sihanoukville. The sound of the beach through our window, playing gin by candle light and eating far too many Oreos.
One day that has to be counted though was the day we spent fishing. We booked a day (10-5) fishing trip from a bar owner named Joe (who coincidentally has the cutest Cambodian, english speaking 4 & 8 year olds in the world) for $13. Despite the name, Joe is a very friendly Cambodian rasta.
When the boat picked us up we didnt think much of it. It was clearly an older boat than some of the others, but it's fine! If Joe was happy to risk his life then so were we. The 3 of us waded out to the boat, chucked our bag in and just after i'd climbed up (with Kels going first) Joe shoved the metal steps onto the boat and waved us off. Good start.
He'd left us in the hands of what can only be described as an adolescent Mowgli from the jungle book, in not only speedos but a t-shirt now too.
But who were we to despair? This guys probably very experienced and not just Joe's 'free today' nephew. Hopefully.
Mowgli (who's real name is Ravi) pulled on the started cords and two engines spluttered into life. Now when i use the word 'engines' it's loosely. The two engines looked like one was from a lawnmower, and the other had been left here by the French back in nineteen hundred and ancient. They were connected to a piece of scaffolding, which in turn was joined to the inside of a washing machine in the way of a propellor. When it started up it sounded like someone had turned on a pneumatic drill and just let it run wild down the street.
Now our shoddy little boat happened to nicely coincide with the choppiest day in Sihanoukville yet. And it felt inevitable when both engined died in the middle of the sea, with waves crashing all around us. No worries! The captain will know a little trick! Nope. He pulled the starter cord for about 15 minutes, then gave up. We were just beginning to worry, and the look on Kels' face was priceless, but then as he decided to give it one more go, one coughed itself awake and carried us to Bamboo island where he was going to fix the engine and set up some fishing line! We hoped.
We stopped on the island for about an hour, bit of a snorkel, bit of Adele, the usual. And when Mowgli called us back, we jumped on the boat, started up our 1/2 engine and puttered out into the sea again. On closer inspection it turned out that the engine was being held together by Mowgli and a bit of fishing line!
Whatever works i suppose...
He then unveiled our fishing gear, which turned out to be 2 x 2 litre plastic bottles, wrapped in fishing line, with a couple of nuts and bolts as weights and a hunk of squid to attract the fishies. Well turns out they loved it.
We were pulling all sorts of fish up out of the water! After 30 mins, we'd caught about 8 fish. We sat there and every 10/15 mins we'd pull up another! Catch of the day goes to Kelsey, for pulling up the biggest of the bunch, a whopping 30cm ruler big!
After a few hours fishing, we headed back in to shore, still praying for the engines to last. We tried to go back to the place where Joe had dropped us off but the waves were too big and with much arm waving we were directed to go round the bay and pull in up the river... We did this, but now being a good 10 mins drive from where we started. Then as we're trudging up the sandy hill to the road (me with a bucket full of fish) we see Joe and a tiny little moped. We look at each other like you've got to be kidding me. Kels clambers on, Joe's driving, im hanging on for dear life, with my bucket of fish, going up a steep hill, all the while Joe (the pot-head) is wetting himself laughing at me riding side-saddle with the fish on my lap, "Just like a market wife Tom! Hahahaha!" Thanks Joe.
What started off as a bit of a hairy day, ended in us cooking the fish over a fire on the beach, Joe and Sandy (his wife) cooking us chips and garlic bread, and us playing with their kids all evening. Lovely day.
The one low-light of Sihanoukville has to be the market. Kelsey didnt mind it, i threw up in my mouth. We'd planned to get a Tuk-Tuk into town, get to the market, go to the post office, post Hannah's present (to get there in time for her birthday) and eat at a place in town more. We walked into this dark, dismal corrogated iron warehouse, type thing. And as you got more and more into the inside, the worse and worse the smell got. Combine fish guts with rotten meat, times by old vegetables and mix in someone dying in the corner under a pile of old bananas and you're coming close to how bad it smelt. Thing like that dont normally get to me, but i tell you what, it was rank. Kels was dawdling ahead, taken in by the whole thing, and there was me dry-heaving behind her, running for the exit for a fag!
And even after we'd left the market for the post office, it was shut. We looked up the prices and it wouldve cost us $40 to send it to San Fran, and as money's running a bit low (6 days to go!) we couldnt justify 10 nights accomodation. So all Hannah got was a "sorry" skype call for her birthday! Sorry H!
But one day out of 16 aint so bad...
All in all, Sihanoukville has been the place i've liked most. The people are friendly, the accomodation and food are amazing, and on a more personal level, Kels and I loved it because here's where we spent the most time feeling like we were alone on holiday together. We've obviously been together the whole trip, but when you're staying at Hostels and Hotels or going to bars everynight, you invariably socialise with a lot of people, and even though we've had a wicked time everywhere, here is the most we've relaxed together.
With 6 days until we're back in England, and a bus coming for us in two hours, Sihanoukville has been amazing. The travelling bit of travelling can sometimes be a bit knackering, or tedious, but 16 days in the sun, with fresh seafood and a good game of Gin Rummy can make you feel more relaxed than you have any right to be. Or thats how it has been for us at least...
Siem Riep here we come!
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