Today is about discovering Sihanoukville, but first I need to sort my pressing domestic duties, and get all my blogs uploaded. The wireless internet cards still haven’t been delivered so am hopeful for tomorrow – perhaps it being the weekend was the problem, or perhaps it’s just “Cambodia time”. But this is a big backpacker town, so there are internet outlets everywhere. The one two doors down from the hotel is good and I can connect my own laptop via a cable too. I am getting quite friendly with the really nice young Cambodian girl who runs it. So I sit out and watch as the world goes by and upload my backlog of blogs in this backpacker town, feeling quite the traveller. But I did start the day with the biggest breakfast imaginable – I may have turned into one of those awful Brits abroad as I was thrilled to discover it included real Heinz baked beans (just hope they weren’t pirated as so much else here is!) and almost real white sliced bread. They also serve PG Tips, but less of an issue for me as I am more of a Nescafe girl. It’s so nice just to take time over a good breakfast that someone else has prepared, and that someone else will wash up for you too – think I’m getting lazy. But I’ll also be getting fat if I eat the “British Breakfast” every day – they also serve a huge fruit bowl with yoghurt, but somehow, it just doesn’t have the same appeal…. I meet Josh on the way out to the internet shop and he asks me if I want to “hang out” on the beach (well, he is Californian…) for a few hours - but don’t start buying the hat yet! His mate Zak, the new hotel manager, is so busy I think poor Josh is at a bit of a loose end. Although he is only about 30, ex USA military, with the most amazing six-pack you have ever seen…. I wonder what the local population thought as we wandered down the beach – and if anyone says taking granny for a walk, you will be in trouble! The road down to the beach is a sandy track, littered with boulders and bits of old concrete and about 200 metres from the Reef Resort, but lined with little resorts, bars, and even a couple of French Restaurants, all open air, really cheap and all look nice. Some small shops selling an eclectic mix of goods, one with second hand books, fake designer sunglasses, long life milk, Khmer scarves, batteries and a small selection of dusty antibiotics. There is also a big new hotel in the process of construction. But when you come across the beach, it is something else, I have never seen one quite like it. It must be a couple of kilometres long, and it is packed with even more bars and restaurants and in front of each are sunbeds, umbrellas, sofas, chairs, tables. The sand is actually quite a nice colour, but there’s so much “furniture” on it, you can’t see much of it at all. And a real riot of colour that just goes on and on and on. As it’s Sunday there are a lot of local people wandering up and down, they all in nice shirts and smart trousers, with all the Westerners lounging about in a state of undress drinking beer. There are loads of local youngsters playing about in the water on huge black inner tubes. And there are the usual banana boats, as well as those water bikes that were weaving in and out of the kids playing in the water – Health & Safety doesn’t look too hot here…. And rubbish everywhere, but it has a great, lively atmosphere. There are people selling all kinds of food on the beach as well as in the restaurants. There are women selling huge langoustines the size of small lobsters (5 for 1US$), others with a pole over their shoulder with hot coals in a bucket at one end and squid in a bucket on the other ready to cook at your sunbed. Cold beer is really cheap at 75 US cents for a huge glass (even cheaper in happy hour later), such a pity I don’t like it. But we decide to stop at the restaurant proudly advertising “Gourmet Ganja”, pancakes, milkshakes or pizzas. On reading the menu, the section of pancakes, milkshakes and pizza is headed “Happy Meals” and I suddenly realise that when they say Ganja, they really mean it – I was amazed. But there was also a huge menu of what I suppose must be called “unhappy meals”. I opt for the pancake from that side of the menu with lemon juice and sugar, and I can report that it was decidedly “unhappy”! People watching on such a busy beach is great fun. There was one bar where everyone was dancing the “Macarena” - just getting big here…., thin, long haired travellers swatting up their Lonely Planet Cambodia (the more dog-eared, the more street cred), aging hippies (mainly patronising the Gourmet Ganja restaurant…), saffron clad monks sheltering from the sun under their umbrellas out taking a stroll, a few topless sunbathers (really rude as this is really frowned upon here, I hope they weren’t Brits), still some fat Western men “flirting” with lovely Cambodian girls (I understand the local translation of “you’re sooooo handsome” is actually “you’re sooooo rich”), people sleeping off buckets of “Mekong” (cheap Thai whiskey literally served in a small bucket with straws), badly disabled landmine victims begging with small children in tow, tourists bright red from too much sun which they will really regret later, it’s all here in an ever changing panorama and really entertaining. Now back up the hill to the hotel. I spot a small supermarket two doors down and pop in – and I actually find that elusive diet coke, but still no hair conditioner to be had, my hair looks more scarecrow like as the days go by. The booze is just so cheap – a litre bottle of Bacardi is only 7US$, no wonder it’s such a party town. Tonight I head again to the local internet shop. Big queues, mainly Brits, all Skypeing their Mum as it’s Mother’s Day – but no queue for me, I can just plug in and go with my trusty laptop and it’s lovely to actually see Mum as we talk. It’s so nice to sit outside rather than inside under the glare of those fluorescent tubes, but the noise from the busy bar next door was a bit of a distraction. I was chatting to the girl who runs the internet shop who was saying that whilst busy, they were all short sessions so she wasn’t taking much money. I made the observation that it was probably people making short Skype calls as it was Mother’s Day in the UK. There was a sharp intake of breath from a young British guy who asked me to clarify what I had just said. I did so, and he gratefully hurried to log on to Skype. His Mum will probably never know how close she was to not getting that all important phone call on Mother’s Day from her son all those miles away…
