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Published: March 2nd 2010
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Sunset at Independence Beach
The two dots to the right are Phoebe and Lukas. Wanting to see the famed Sihanoukville down by the Cambodian coast before it got developed, we headed down on a bus for four hours to see this coastal wonderland....or at least that's what we thought it would be.
We arrived in the early evening after the sun had set, so it was hard to get a good idea of what the place was like. However, after a short walk along the first beach we arrived at it wasn't too hard to work out. Serendipity (not much of it to be found TBH)is barely a beach, having apparently had half of it wiped away from a recent typhoon. What little beach there is has bar after bar after bar lining the shores, and where the chairs and tables finish, the rubbish starts, that much we could make out from the little light that was available. Sitting down to eat, you immediately notice how fond the locals are of their dogs, which feel free to roam about the tables looking for the odd scrap to be thrown their way. None of the staff bother to shoo them away because they've already adopted them as pets. Now, I like animals, but I draw
Independence Beach
Phoebe found a discarded fishing rod made of bamboo and used it to carry her shoes home. the line at dogs sitting almost eye to eye with me at the dinner table.
After one night in our less than perfect (I'm being nice) accommodation, we agreed we were paying a premium to be next to a beach that wasn't really much of beach, and certainly wasn't swimmable, or even nice to look at. So we packed up and moved two coves along to Independence Beach. We found a room at a big old rambling place one block back from the beach, with huge rooms, friendly staff and the best bit for Phoebe...TWO double beds! We took a wander to the beach and it was vastly different from Serendipity with hardly any people around. By the first day we'd already met and made friends with a lady from Austria, Birgit, and her son (10 yrs) Lukas, both spoke English that totally put to shame any efforts Nick or I might have made towards German in the past.
A new experience for us was Russian tourists. Next to Independence Beach was Sohka Beach, which was reserved exclusively for Sohka resort, a Russian owned enterprise. Clearly the Russians have enough money and enough muscle around Cambodia to start
owning beaches outright. Unfortunately for us, some Russian tourists consisting of some unattractive, overweight men, their pampered floozies and one odd-one-out badly overweight woman (probably the daughter of some corrupt millionaire Oligarch we imagined) migrated over to our virtually deserted and peaceful Independence Beach, played dance music, and were generally revolting. Birgit gave us the none-too-nice low-down on the general unpleasantness of Russian tourists and this seemed to tally with what we saw. On such experiences grand generalisations are made - sorry to any nice Russian tourists out there! Thankfully they migrated back after the day and we didn't see them again. Birgit summed it up nicely with “I've never seen so many unattractive European men on the beach as I have in Sihanoukville”.
We've learnt that in Cambodia there's something called a 'power to wait ratio', meaning, if you have power (or money), you don't have to wait (this also applies to traffic). Certainly seems to be true of all the development going on in this area. Whole islands have been bought up (by Russians among others) and infrastructure is in the process of being built, with luxury five star resorts not far behind. Also, the owners of
Mini Russian Empire
Yet another island owned by the Russians...but what would you do apart from admire the views?? the place we stayed apparently pay $15 to the police every month just to keep them of their back. They also pay $33 a month to a 'tax collector', who pockets most if not all of it. But of course, this is referred to as “commission”....a very different word from “corruption”!
One of the best days in Sihanoukville was spent with Birgit and Lukas on board 'The Sun'. It was a boat owned by 'Mr. Robert', a portly, bald German guy who looked like he'd be more comfortable in Lederhosen than budgie smugglers sailing around the Cambodian coast. But actually after a day spent with him behind the bar dancing about to his terrible German music, it kind of made sense. A spectacular day was had by all, including snorkeling in a reef, bathing in crystal clear waters and walking through some rainforest. Not to mention a G&T and a bottle of red wine at the end of the day.
Unfortunately we seem to be getting attacked by various live creatures in our travels. The first culprit was head lice, which Nick and Phoebe caught. We managed to successfully get hold of some lice shampoo (having not bought
Paradise
Sometimes life is hard it with us...after two years of Phoebe in school and not one incidence), and began the shampooing and combing routine. Eventually we realised the little buggers were immune to the shampoo as they were still alive during the combing!! We have now found some local stuff which seems to have knocked them out but the eggs are harder to get rid of. Swimming in the sea we've also had little bites from sea-lice or some such creatures. Then Nick sat on a couch that happened to be infested with fleas that were more than happy to attach themselves to him for a feast. Poor Nick became a bit crazed by all the bites (which were numbering in the 50+ range) which he was still getting long after sitting on the couch. So he started circling all the bites with a blue pen to keep track of whether any new ones were coming up, meanwhile constantly soaking his clothes in hot water and other hopeful measures. Sure enough the bites kept appearing, so Nick continued to circle them. After two days he looked like a blue ringed octopus!
After four days on the beach in Sihanoukville it was time to continue with the travels. Next stop just around the coast and inland slightly; Kampot.
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christine giles
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Jo +i are still combating nits from her grand children!Where are you off to now after Kampot?Our nits were 250 +Yet we were in templestow! Would love to join you in your travels one day.love AC