Sihanoukville

Hello,

The night dogs nearly had our bones last night...

I believe they've been following us in an increasing pack since the early days of Siem Reap. I believe their number stands at around 400. This figure is based upon the inevitable snowball effect of a moving, pack multiplied by the number of provinces we've gradually passed through. We have moments of relief where there appears to be complete silence... then we hear it. The erratic and bone-chilling howls of deranged and demented street animals. We share a glance and then with eyes wide open...pupils shrinking we declare in sunken voices: "They've found us..."

We then remember that the pack barking is usually brought about by the discovery of the rotting carcass of a hideous frog... or the half digested remains of a rival dog's fecal matter. This is one thing we've finally discovered about Cambodia. You will rarely see any dog logs lying in wait for your flip flops. This isn't because of conscientious public spending...but because for a night dog - that's apparently good eating. We couldn't work it out for a long time. Night dogs are a breed on their own.

We wandered the streets for a short while after discovering that our beds were riddled with bed-bugs and were gradually consuming our exposed flesh. The dogs seemed to be around every corner and the lights seemed to shrink against the heavy night sky. We were trying to find anything that might still be open where we could ride it out for a few hours... but to no avail. Instead we found ourselves in a pretty awkward situation stuck directly between a fang-bearing night dog and heavy traffic. It felt a little like the dog was trying to make us walk the plank into a sea of metal sharks... I saw the glint in it's eye. We spent a few hours in a local internet cafe and then eventually gave up and headed back to the Monkey Republic, which happened to be the name of our guesthouse.

We moved our bags from the room at about 4am and headed through to the bar area. The security guard immediately thought we were ditching the place for a free night and came over to ask questions. In a description much like a charade, I explained to him that we had bed-bugs and they were biting us. To any onlooker I would have looked mentally deranged, talking broken English and attempting to mimic the sound of a creature that no-one has ever heard because they're very small insects. It worked though, and he checked out the room and understood the situation. From this point on he was incredibly helpful. He allowed us to stay on the sofa's on the upstairs bar and took it upon himself to make sure we weren't bothered by mosquito's etc. He told me he gets paid $18 a month for a his job as a security guard. Pretty ridiculous really.

We've now moved to a guesthouse where hopefully we won't have to evacuate. We didn't pay for the room last night so it's worked out alright.

The beaches at Sihanoukville are pretty nice. Looking out from the shore you can see the silhouettes of mountain islands reaching out to the sea. We had a few problems at Serendipity beach with beggars and children trying to sell things. There is a certain amount you can take before it starts to grind you into the ground. I've stopped feeling like a monster, but it still gets to you. These people aren't begging for the fun of it and you only have to take a look at them to know. One woman was holding her motionless father upright and carrying him around to beg. I have no idea what he suffered from but that situation is quite a common sight in the towns, it's very sad. After working in Siem Reap for 5 weeks I've built up a fair resistance to that kind of thing, but by the end of the day at Serendipity it became a little distracting. On occasion there was maybe an interval of about a minute before another kid would come running over to sell you a bracelet. They drive a hard sale and must be persuaded that "no" is one of the options that their potential customers have a right to. In all honesty though it wasn't too bad... the main problem for me was a single western fat man who lumbered down the beach wearing nothing but a pair of pink speedos. I was on a sunbed, protecting my ghostlike skin from the marauding UV rays from the sun when I caught something repulsive in the corner of my eye. There's nothing really you can do in this situation... you know you're not going to like what you see, but for some reason something inside urges you to take a glance anyway. I glanced.

I was revived by an ocean breeze a few hours later with memories of a man so shameless he didn't see a problem in wearing pink hot-pants on a family friendly beach. I imagine the authorities thought about approaching him several times (because that has to be illegal?) but who could seriously hold a conversation with that? The man was a walrus packed into human flesh and then unleashed upon the human race to boldly wear clothes that no-one should ever wear. The man sickened me to the core... I have endless sympathy for his young Cambodian wife.

Today we were pretty much dead to the world. It's quite weird waking up in a bar at 8am after only having had about 2 hours of broken sleep. We sorted out our visas for Vietnam, to which we travel to on the 18th of this month. We spent the rest of the day on Otres beach having had recommendations from several of our friends. It was a pretty beach and absolutely dead so a huge improvement on yesterday. Unfortunately it began raining buckets the second we got there and was kind of on and off for the rest of the day.

Cambodian rain is freezing!

I think that's all I have today... I'm still deliriously tired so I'm not sure how much sense I'm making, but I'm low on time so I just have to go with it. I intend to write the blog entry about the Killing Fields and S21 when I have time. The photo's are quite shocking and fascinating at the same time.

The last thing that we witnessed last night was a giant thunderstorm far out at sea. We heard no thunder, just the powerful flashes of light against the pitch dark sky. This place continuously surprises me.

Chris

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