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Sihanoukville – Paradise for Pestering

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

Sihanoukville has some of the best beaches in Cambodia. I’ve obviously been spoiled by Malaysian and Thai beaches because i was unimpressed.

The beach was a thin strip of white sand, so narrow in places that the legs of the beach loungers were washed by the waves. Curving round for some miles it was lined with small rustic cafes and restaurants, dotted with grass umbrellas and bounded by Casuarina trees. If i had come straight from England my reaction would have been different, but even then i would stop short of calling it beautiful.

My first morning was spent eating breakfast on the beach accompanied by a troop of kids swarming around me trying to sell the bangles all the way up their arms.

One in particular continued to pester me when the others realised my wallet was staying closed. His name was Tha, a friendly enough boy who insisted on drawing pictures in my journal including an imaginative map of the world. “This is Cambodia, below is Germany” he would say in a teacherly, pedagogical tone as he drew. Scotland came next, to the west of Germany, and below that lay the United States, and so on and so forth.

Sihanoukville is a demanding place to holiday; lying on a beach can be an exhausting test of endurance. Relaxing on a sun lounger dozing off is an invitation for women offering massages to stroke your arm or back without warning and who interpret “No thankyou” as “Possibly in the future”

“You help me yeah?”

“No thankyou”

“Later yeah?”

“No thankyou”

“Tomorrow yeah?”

“No thankyou!”

If it wasn’t massage women it was amputee beggars, blind singers led by obedient guide dogs, or (still more) children with fruit balanced on their heads.

If you desire relaxation and rest, Sihanoukville is a place full of frustration. Even if you take it as it comes, the place can try the patience of a monk. Since entering Cambodia I had been eyeing up a multi-use, checked, red and white scarf so popular with the locals. I purchased one off of a young women patrolling the beach. Immediately Tha came up to me asking why i had not bought from him. I explained i had no idea he sold them; he had never offered any to me. This failed to satisfy him and he irritatingly asked that i never asked him if he had any. Apologies failed to satisfy him. “You don’t like me”, “You think my drawings are crap”, “You wish me dead”(!).

While i was apparently casting a death wish, a young child was reading the last rites to Louis who refused to buy her produce – “I hope you get eaten by a shark and a dolphin eat you too.” How lovely. Wal Mart has greeters, Cambodia has shamers.

For the rest of this post, please go HERE.

Sihanoukville – Sucks?

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

A beach retreat is not the first thing that springs to mind with the mention of Cambodia; a country famous for its temples and infamous for its terror. Most tourists beat a well worn path between Phnom Penh and Siam Reap. But that is changing.

Sihanoukville, established a mere half century ago, is a toddler of a town in such an ancient country. Born in 1950 when a French-Cambodian construction company tore out a large chunk of jungle and began building the first deep-sea port in the country, Sihanoukville expanded quickly. Growth and good-times abruptly halted with the onset of civil war in 1970. Even with the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge the beaches stayed empty. The bumpy road to Phnom Penh remained notorious for banditry and in 1994 three backpackers were abducted from a train and murdered by remnant communist forces.

With a tentative peace in 1997 the town picked up where it left off, rapidly developing to cater for the first intrepid explorers. More recently larger crowds have been arriving as the resort becomes established on the backpacker trail. In response a number of shops, guesthouses and bars have been opened. Even the Independence Hotel is scheduled to reopen, having lain empty for 30 years since the Khmer Rouge redecorated it with bullet holes.

For the rest of this post, please go HERE.

Siam Reap to Sihanoukville – Spider and a side of fries please

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007
"Sir, you buy?" a woman asked with a plate of food balanced on her head. An audible "Eeek!" escaped my lips. I don't recall ever making this noise when confronted by a women selling food, except perhaps in McDonalds. But ... [Continue reading this entry]