Holidays on Holidays

We sidestepped the Tuk-Tuk cartel as we rolled off the bus at Shianoukville, and found ourselves with a cheap ride (although we had to keep our voice down so that the cartel didn’t know our driver had lowered the locally set high fare) to the hotel we had picked from the Lonely Planet, Coaster’s. We booked into a Bungalow which is basically a wooden hut up on sticks about 3m off the ground, with a couple of fans, mozzie nets, a bathroom and a balcony with an absolutely beautiful view of the ocean and the surrounding islands.

We have decided to take a break from travelling and just chill out for a few days by the beach. Which is pretty much all we have done, moving from beachside restaurants with sand under our toes to beachside bars with sand under our toes. We hired a scooter on our second day and braved the local police and their arbitrary tourist laws like riding with lights on during day and charging fines for not having a Cambodian licence, basically fund raising and fines are barter-able. We rode down to another quieter local beach for a relaxed lunch, then back to another beach later for a swim while we watched a beautiful sunset over the ocean. Then we headed down the another beach restaurant with sand under our toes and ate a delicious serve of Barbequed King prawns.

Let’s just sidestep for a second here: Now I know that I may look stereotypically the part with my long hair, beard and my occasional wearing of a Pink Floyd T-Shirt, but at least two or three times a day since we have been in Cambodia, someone on the street will subtly offer me Marijuana. Sometimes it is not so subtle with them pulling out a bag just to show me that their stuff is legit. We had both read stories about police offering tourists drugs just to then arrest them and give them a large fine or threaten with jail. But just like the street peddler they will say, “you change your mind you come see me”. It is also common for pizza restaurants to have a partitioned menu with normal pizza and “happy” pizza, which we assume has pot sprinkled on it as an ’erb.

So while relaxing on the beach eating our king prawns we noticed a lot of people sitting around smoking joints, one old Khmer guy was walking along the beach smoking a big joint while talking into his radio, no not a walkie talkie, just a radio… As you do. It is obviously a part of the local culture, and we even noticed a lady going through the tables selling pre-rolled joints while helping to maintain the barbeque. Although there is quite an alternative tourist culture is Shianoukville, with lots of fire-twirlers on the beach and Doof Doof that starts at about 12am and goes all night. Our first morning we woke at 6am and watched the sunrise before going back to bed, only to be woken 20mins later by some Argentineans next door, who were getting home to re-supply their coke-heads.

Our third day we took a boat out to the local islands where we snorkelled around the coral and relaxed on more beaches while being fed a beautiful barbeque of local fresh ocean fish. It was another wonderfully relaxing day in paradise although we both got sunburnt really badly. We look like Pommy Backpackers at the moment as we are so very pink, and so very sore. My troubles are made worse as my left ear is blocked after getting a water logged ear and then making it worse with a cotton bud. I may have fucked my ear drum or something, shit happens. We also realised how spoilt we were at the Great Barrier Reef, the fish and coral here were really nice, but they were no way as grand and colourful as what we saw at the Great Barrier Reef.

Today is our last day here (maybe). We’d like to stay longer as it is so lovely just chilling out on the beach, but it is probably time to get moving again and tomorrow will start a new chapter as we take a bus back to Phnom Pehn and then onto to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam by tomorrow night. We hired a scooter this morning but haven’t used it yet because we have both been so busy doing absolutely nothing at all. Maybe we will go for a cruise then retire for the afternoon in one of those beach side bars with the sand under our toes…

Sorry about posting three posts in one day but we've been quite busy doing absolutely nothing.

Photos for the last week can be found right HERE.