To the beach!

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I set off for Sihanouckville early Friday morning. The bus ride down took us through some beautiful scenery, and surprisingly I was one of the few westerners on the bus. For the last hour of the ride, the little kid next to me fell asleep on my shoulder. I exchanged smiles with his parents across the aisle and we let him sleep until we arrived.

As I got off the bus I was approached by several moto drivers, but I kept telling them that I needed to use the internet. One of them followed me and he agreed to take me to the internet and then a guest house afterward. I checked the email and found one from Mickan so I asked the driver to take me over to their guest house on weather station hill. I met up with the girls and we caught up for a bit before heading over to the beach.

Serendipity beach, as it has been named, is a pleasant strip of sand complete with beach loungers and cheap oceanfront restaurants. The atmosphere is so much more relaxed than Ko Phangan. I imagine this is what the Thai islands were like 20 years ago. Unfortunately it looks like the beaches are being developed very quickly so this won't last much longer.

We ate some food at the beach and then headed back to the guest house to catch the evening movie, which was the pixar film Cars. It was actually a great movie although I think I liked it more than the girls. Maybe because so many of the locations and characters in the movie fit images I have of America that the Mickan and Jossan didn't share.

After the movie we headed back to the beach to get dinner and then go to the "full moon" party. We also met up with a couple of Aussie guys that Mickan and Jossan knew from Khao San rd. We headed over to the "party", which turned out to be a half full bar at the end of the beach. Eventually the Aussies joined us and we hung out for a while drinking buckets of whiskey and coke. After an hour or so we went in search of more action and ended up at the other end of the beach where there was a bit more going on. We left in the wee hours of the morning and caught motos back to the guest house. I was pretty drunk and went to my bungalow and crashed.

The next morning I was packing up to leave and I happened to check under the bed. I saw an mp3 player lying on the floor that looked suspiciously like mine, but I was puzzled because I hadn't taken it out of my bag. I grabbed it and realized that it was mine, but there were scratches all over it and the headphone cord had been sheared off a couple of inches above the jack. Then I started taking stuff out of my day pack (where it had been) and as I got to the bottom I found the jar of peanut butter I was carrying was sitting at the bottom, minus the lid. About that time I also noticed the huge hole that had been chewed through the side of my bag next to the peanut butter. That's when everything clicked. Something had chewed its way into the bag to get to the peanut butter. I don't understand two things, though. First, the peanut butter in the jar looked untouched, but the lid was completely missing. There were a few small slivers of green plastic from the lid at the bottom of the bag, but that was all. The lid wasn't on the floor, or in the bag. So, whatever got into the bag either ate the lid or carried it off. Second, the rodent apparently fancied my mp3 player enough to carry it from the bag, chew through the headphone cord, and make off with about one meter of wire. I still don't know what got into the bag, but I suspect a rather large rat.

As I finished packing I also discovered that the front of my big pack had been soaked in something grimy that smelled suspiciously like diesel. Luckily, the bag is pretty waterproof and it didn't infiltrate, but I was a bit pissed to find that on top of the chewed bag.

We left around 11 and headed back to Phnom Penh, so stay tuned for that.

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Comments

[Jessica]

Rat holes
Dude that sucks!! but is kinda funny, the never to be solved mystery rodent bites.... including missing jar lid... right... and how on earth would something like diesel get onto your pack anyway?? still... sounds like you are still having fun... and beaches... lets not get into it.... I'll just say that its doing that rain thing a LOT here! hope you're well! cheers

[Melissa]

I wonder if it was a pack rat. In addition to scavenging for food, they carry objects off to their nests. You were lucky the cord broke before they managed to drag your player away! I'm not sure I'd carry food in my pack in rat infested areas.