Sihanoukville – Paradise for Pestering
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.
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Tags: Asia, Beach, Cambodia, Sihanoukville, Travel, Travel
andrewlegon
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