Friends...the one where they come to Cambodia

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We get to Sihanoukville a couple of days before Ritch's 36th birthday, with Billy, Lucy & Chris (for the rest of this blog collectively called BLC) due to arrive the day after. The bus gets into town quite late and the first few guesthouses we try are full. We plan to spend a couple of days at the backpacker haunt Serendipity Beach before spending Ritch's birthday on the more tranquil Otres to the south. The light has almost faded when we agree to be taken to our moto dude's 'friend's place'. As we pull into the Chiva Shack I laugh to myself...this is the main party bar on the beach. We somehow get Jedi-mind-tricked into taking taking a "room" for the night. Think...crappy shed round the back of a pub and you'd be on the right track. Still, it's well cheap, too late to find anything else and happy hour has just started, so chin up and all that. But even the Mekong Whiskey can't delude us into staying for longer than 12 hours. An early walk up the length of Sependipity the next morning is enough to convince us that this is not where we want to be. The narrow strip of dirty sand, the murkey water and the swarm of flies that accompany our breakfast are enough...this place may be fine for a full moon party, but you wouldn't want to live there. Are we getting older and wiser?

So we head straight over the headland to Otres and it's a decision well made. We're rewarded with with the view of bamboo huts spread along a long, clean crescent of sand lapped by crystal clear water. Let the holiday begin! We spend the day before Ritch's birthday practising for the big day...chilling on the beach beds, sipping and dipping until we're sure that we've perfected the art of loafing (like we needed the practice!) On his birthday, in lieu of a big birthday budget, I swear to be his genie for the day. I magic up breakfast on the porch of our seafront bungalow, organise a massage on the beach and generally fetch and serve all day long...he doesn't even abuse his position as much as I would've! That night we have cocktails at Cory's place next door before catching a tuktuk to Serendipity for dinner followed by Man Utd beating Tottenham. Cory is a very cool American lady who runs her own beach bar and bungalows. She makes the best (ie, the biggest) G&T's on the beach and her voice has more molasses than the Caramel Bunny. Cory is to become our guardian angel on Otres...organising trusted tuktuk drivers at night and doing all the things our actual host Ramon should've been doing.

We're staying at La Casa, a collection of really nicely made bamboo huts with cool communal areas decked out with huge satellite chairs and sun loungers. It's run by this Spanish guy Ramon, and it soon becomes clear that all is not well in his world...he reminds me of a big, drunk, miserable bear, but the huts are lovely and we don't mind him if he doesn't mind us.We know we've been roughing it for awhile now and our idea of 'lovely' is probably far more, umm rustic, than before. We're not sure how much luxury the soon to arrive BLC will need, but decide to err on the side of caution. We take a tour of all the available accomodation on Otres and after seeing a beautiful hut set up on the headland with aircon, TV and ensuite we book two for BLC, thinking that they can always move down to our place if they decide to.

We head down to meet them feeling excited and a little nervous...I hope their journey was trouble free and that they like it here. You feel responsible when friends come to visit...it's a long way to come and even further if you hate it! Lucy and Chris are just walking down the steps from their hut as we approach and seeing them on a different beach so far from Brighton is weird in the best possible way. Then Billy arrives and the reunion is complete...it feels great to be walking back up the beach in a gang after so long in a crew of two. We spend the afternoon at La Casa sat in the satellite chairs, catching up over Mekong whiskey and coke, socking up the rays and dunking ourselves in the water. Conversation and laughter flow easily and like Billy says at the time, it's sweet that we click back together so easily. We move onto Cory's for killer cocktails at sunset and it gets messy fast...must've been the jetlag?!

The next morning BLC decide to move to La Casa...their bungalows didn't match up to the fancy show hut we'd viewed, but nonetheless we're chuffed that they're moving to our place. The huts at Ramon's are basic, but well made with comfy beds and private cold water showers. There's no electricity on Otres, the generators kick in each evening til about 10.30pm and although there's no fan at night, the huts are well positioned to catch the seabreeze. Except it turns out that Billy's windows are nailed shut and, as we know he runs at a pretty high temperature in the first place, he spends an uncomfortably hot first night. The huts also come with the usual menagerie of spiders, beetles, the odd big-ass cockroach all overseen by a team of friendly gekkos. Unfortunately the mosquitoes have found a new favorite dish in Billy and a second miserable night's 'sleep' is enough to convince him it's time for an upgrade. He moves to the more plush Karma bar nearby, aka the new Billywood. The rest of us stay on at La Casa, even though by now the increasingly drunk and useless Ramon and his wife seem on the verge of divorce and it's impossible to get anything out of her 'on strike' kitchen and he's already drunk the bar dry. It's a measure of how relaxed (lazy?!) we are that we can't be bothered to move!

We quickly fall into a holiday routine...our days filled with an exhausting routine of sunbathing, swimming, eating and drinking, card playing and reading. Our pack quickly grows to include 3 dogs, the favorite being the none to bright Stoopido (aka Silly Bollocks, aka Sausage) who is endearingly useless at holding his own in the cut throat world of beachdogs and has to be saved when bigger dogs come on countless occasions. Bar owners quickly become friends whilst two of the beach roving massage ladies adopt our group and come by everyday to bully Billy into evermore unnecessary beauty treatments. Nights are either spent chilling on Otres, drinking at Cory's or at one of the other laid back bars, or getting a tuktuk down the bumpy road to Serendipity to join the crowds at the party bars. Highlights of these nights out include the development of the tuktuk dance, Billy & Chris' beautiful Summer Lovin' duets, dinner at the Bond villain-esque Snake House restaurant and watching Liverpool spank United. Lowlights include Chris losing his passport after one Mekong bucket too many (did he have it with him in case he got ID'd?!), Lucy 'big tipper' Doherty mistaking $50 bills for $5 to instantly amneasiac beach boys and watching Liverpool spank United.

There's also a boat trip to the nearby Ream National Park and a best forgotten, if you can remember it in the first place, full moon party. We also take a less than successful jaunt to Koh Ta Kiev, an almost deserted tropical island, which despite gorgeous beaches and lovely bungalows, is only paradise for food poisoning, relentless sand flies and stomach turning sex tourists. We cut the trip short and head back to Otres after just two nights and it feels like coming home...Cory has the Bombay Sapphire on ice, Stoopido goes loopy when he sees us and the dollar dollar bill signs light up in the beach ladies eyes. It's good to be back.

It's been wicked to stay in one place long enough to become part of the scene...to see old friends and to make new ones. We've loved having BLC with us for two weeks and as we have a last supper together in Phnom Penh the night before their flight home I feel sad that it's coming to an end. We say our goodbyes as we leave the restaurant and head off back to our hotel a crew of two once more...a passing tuktuk toots us and we're left with the lasting final image of 3 crazy English, waving and doing the tuktuk dance as they go. Thanks for coming guys, it's been emotional x

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Comments

[Cassie]

Catching up on both your blogs - sounds like you had a great time with your friends x