What can I say about Sihanoukville? Thinking back to the few days I was there, not much. Normally I’m able to turn the stuff I did into some sort of riveting story but for the first time in a long time I’m really at a loss for words. For a small town on the Southwest border of Cambodia it’s pretty nice but it is what it is. A beach town, sand, beer, and hawkers.
My first morning there was fantastic, zooming through empty streets to my guesthouse on Serendipity beach, or rather the road just next to it. That road, a short stretch of what could only be described as chaos with a purpose.
It was on a downhill slope just past the roundabout guarded by two giant golden lions. The pavement ended suddenly and then you were on the road. Giant rocks lay strewn everywhere. Run off from rain and who knows what had carved deep gorges into the soft sandlike earth. Left and right buildings in one stage of construction or another were alive with workers making noises from early morning to late night, their detritus thrown casually into the street.
The one good thing about that road was that it led to the beach, a place where in the early morning before the hawkers got there you could enjoy a nice relaxing swim and a casual sit on the white sand beach. Any time after 8am children and old ladies would walk up to you and try and sell useless things in an unending stream. I’m not even going to talk about the beggars.
Prices, now those were interesting. Talk about inflation. I know that being in a touristy area means higher prices but some things were ridiculous. A dollar fifty for a cup of coffee? Even in Siem Reap a much more populous and visited town the max you’d pay for a cup was $1.00. Food was even more ridiculously priced. Walking about ten minutes from all that things dropped to a more normal level but it was still a bit shocking.
Sihanoukville was great just to sit around and relax, which I did a lot when not working on pictures, articles for a magazine, and my blog. Settling deep into one of the cushioned chairs that lined the beach in front of the restaurant/lounges I saw a lot of time pass in front of my eyes. The two full days I was there (not counting the morning of the third when I left for…well, you’ll find out) passed like fog in the early morning sun.
The afternoon was pretty much standard. The clock would strike one and the rain would begin. For a couple of hours all you could do was sit and watch the sky bleed from the safety of wherever you happened to be chilling. A real tough life.
Evening got a little more interesting. As the sun set most of the waterside lounges started their happy hours, $0.50 draft beers, which helped me relax after such a tough day. Enjoying a couple of drinks with a friend I had met in Siem Reap and who had also come to Sihanoukville as well as the new friends I’d made in town time just slid by. The constant cycle of Bob Marley and Jack Johnson didn’t help to encourage any high energy activities either.
The time in Sihanoukville just was. Nothing special about it just a bit of relaxation after the last few months of insanity, at least I thought I was relaxing. As I stepped into the Cambodia dive shop a few hundred meters away from my guesthouse and signed up for a boat ride to nearby Koh Rong island and one night in the dorms I had no idea what I was in for. I was about to experience what real relaxation was.
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