Beaching and reflections on South East Asia

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Sihanoukville is probably Cambodia’s most popular beaching resort, with several beaches around the old port in the main attracting backpackers. We were heading to Serendipity Beach, supposedly the party beach. Compared to Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, we truly were going to stay in luxury. The girls got themselves a double room and I got a single complete with my own double bed. These rooms included 4 walls each, roofs, en-suite bathrooms and 2 fans in each room. Not only could we walk to our hostel and in the area nearby without seeing the obvious prevalence of drugs and prostitutes, there were even warnings inside our rooms warning us about the law and forbidding them. A hefty $6 a night. It hit me how much we really had been roughing it up to this stage. Our last 3 nights in Cambodia had cost $4 combined.

I’d finished my book and had been made to feel good by the warm ending after what seemed like a never ending nightmare. After showering and changing I picked up Nick Hornby’s most recent. I’m normally a big fan, but clearly it didn’t set a good first impression as my next memory was being woken by Katy and Jess in a dazed, confused state to go out for some dinner then a few drinks. I think that the peak tourist season has passed in Cambodia, so Serendipity Beach was quieter than expected. It seemed half way between the two extremes I’d experienced in Goa, India. There I’d been to Palolem in the south which was utterly laid back, with no night clubs but a load of chilled out bars serving cocktails all night long. In north Goa at Calangute, there had been a wealth of clubs with dancefloors open until 6 or 7am and an appropriate lifestyle. It struck me that Serendipity beach hadn’t decided quite what it wanted to be when compared to these two, it was stuck somewhere in the middle. After a time of half relaxing and chatting amongst ourselves and trying to meet new people here and there we went to bed; I was looking forward to a day of serious relaxation.

That’s exactly what I got. The beach was beautiful to me. Apparently Thailand and the Philippines have more impressive ones, but I saw white sands and clear blue seas. The water was really warm which meant it didn’t have the refreshing feel that would have added to it. The beach was lined with huts serving food and drinks and sunbeds, as well as workers walking up and down selling fruit and tack. They could become a bit annoying at times. Altogether it was one of the most chilled out days ever; reading my book and sunbathing, going into the sea from time to time. Eating cheap food and drinking cheap milkshakes, getting served upon the entire time. Feeling like a King served by all the locals made me feel a bit guilty at times. The least relaxing part of the day was, surprisingly, the $5 hour long massage. It was just painful more than anything else and people begun laughing at my facial grimaces as thumbs were pushed down hard below my shoulder blades or into my spine or other similarly uncomfortable places. It reminded me of Michael McIntyre’s set; I too am not relaxed enough to enjoy a massage. We then had an amazing BBQ dinner on the beach before repeating the night before. The police came and told the bar to turn their music off at midnight which somewhat killed the atmosphere. The next day was similar which left me itching for my next location; I loved my first day relaxing and chilling out on the beach. After the second I was wondering how people manage this for a two week holiday without getting out more.

That night I said goodbye to Katy and Jess before going off to bed. They were going to Vietnam, I was jealous that they would be seeing the gorgeous Hoi An that I hadn’t had time to see where they would be taking full advantage of the town’s famously cheap tailors. As for me, I was off to Koh Chang in Thailand.

My bus to the Cambodia-Thailand border was such a highlight that it deserves a paragraph of its own. The bus went through miles of dense jungle and over countless picturesque rivers and lakes, each with old local fishing boats going about their work in a postcard picture fashion. At the edge of several parts of rainforest there were warning signs about landmines, another reminder about Cambodia’s recent history. Even after Phnom Penh was re-taken, the jungle regions near Thailand remained a Khmer Rouge stronghold until 1998. You can’t get off the beaten track and into unspoiled territory as a tourist in Cambodia; you could die trying to find that quiet place to go to the toilet mid trek. Taking a bus through the middle of it all is probably the closest you can come and is utterly worth remembering. At the end of the first leg we crossed over into Thailand at surely the most picturesque border crossing in the world, with blue seas stretching out beyond the immigration offices and land lined with palm trees. If only I hadn’t gotten water in my camera in Laos.

I had mixed thoughts on my time in Cambodia. It was unforgettable and I had a great time. However, I’ve been left with the feeling that I could have got more out of it had I put more effort in. I never really spoke to any locals unless in a business sense, I never tried to get off the beaten track at all and see beneath the tourist surface. This was especially the case in Phnom Penh. Loads of people come back from Cambodia and talk about the inspiring spirit, happiness and friendliness that the Khmer people show after their recent history. I saw it a little but really when you see the country’s two biggest tourist sights whilst running out of the capital city as quickly as possible, there’s a limit to how much you’ll learn about the place. I still had a great time though, I’d advise it to anybody.

After another, far less impressive, bus in Thailand I got on the ferry to Koh Chang, the 2nd largest island in Thailand and relatively new for tourists compared to the islands near the gulf of Thailand, although hardly untouched and unspoiled. I got talking to some exchange students from HKUST and wasn’t impressed by their comments on Skitz; how dare they insult CityU’s stronghold nightclub. Apart from that I got on with them well. I also met some Gap Yah students fresh from 3 months volunteering in Cambodia. Had a bit of envy until they started talking about true, rural Khmer cuisine. Dog and rice a staple diet, although sometimes they were treated to grasshoppers and tarantulas and once they even had a real feast of raw water buffalo. No wonder they all looked so skinny. I’ll stick to Thai-style curries thank you. I was planning to go trekking through dense rainforest past various beautiful waterfalls in Koh Chang.

Unfortunately, arriving at Lonely Beach at around 10pm, most travel agents were closed. Even if there were any open, I didn’t see a variety of big advertisements for day trekking trips from travel agents as I expected. I realised I would be spending another day beaching; a relief in some days. The heat could well have killed me had I gone trekking. I was struggling to find a hostel until a very helpful Canadian guy names Manuel showed me to a place he knew for £4 a night which was comfortable enough. He informed me a bar where I could meet him later before leaving me to sort myself out. After another brilliant Thai curry I found him and was introduced to various people. This included one man from Reading who supported the football team much to my delight. Unfortunately, both having been out of the country for the best part of a year, we couldn’t talk for hours about it. He was from a slightly different era to me and seemed more interested in getting about the terraces in Elm Park. My main memory of Elm Park’s terraces was being too short to see past the steward so a conversation which could have gone on for hours dried up relatively quickly. I also met a man who had cycled the entire way across Latin America, west to east, as well as much of Asia. I think everybody noticed his exceedingly short shorts just so that we could all see what a work out he’d given his thighs. It was really good company in the main, I was liking Thailand again. The bar had a long haired, middle aged Thai man and his acoustic band playing the likes of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen late into the night. He fitted the bill perfectly.

I was awoken the next day by my neighbour introducing himself. He fitted the Thai tourist stereotype I feared; he belonged on big brother. “I woke up at 7am on the bar this morning. I’ll excuse myself now if I’m a bit of a character. I went to that bar with the singer the other night, I went up and jacked the microphone and sung myself. The manager told me to sit down at first but I was so good he was begging me to stay. I only did one song though, I didn’t like him”. Insert expletives every other word and replace phrases such as “I’m a bit of character” and “I didn’t like him” where appropriate. After a painful walk to the beach in his company I found a place to eat breakfast by myself before getting back into the old beaching routine. The beach wasn’t as nice or well equipped with sunbeds and bars like Sihanoukville, I was really disappointed that I hadn’t gone trekking. I spent most of the afternoon with the HKUST students before grabbing dinner. I had a brief notion to go out to a few bars meeting travellers when I finished and soon enough I met a French couple in the first bar I went to. After struggling with the accent barrier for an hour (massive generalisation: French people have the worst English of all Europeans) I altered my nights plans and went back to my room to finish off Nick Hornby whilst cockroaches scuttled across my floor before going to bed. Koh Chang hadn’t impressed me. It was expensive, the beach was mediocre and the final factor in my judgement came when I was forced to collect all my laundry in a damp state from my inept hostel manager before using the bucket to shower due to the drying up of running water. It was a shame to go out from a great trip on a bit of a low.

The next day I returned to Bangkok and splashed out £8 on a hostel with A/C. It was a really clean, smart place so I was very surprised when I managed to break a toilet door down just by pushing instead of pulling. By chance I met one of the girls I knew from Laos, Nicki, in one of the street restaurants and had a couple of beers talking over where we’d both been since and our highlights of our trips. Neither of us was that much interested in trawling through all the bars and clubs of Khao San Road so it was nice just to take it easy. The next morning I dodged a scam to be ripped off for breakfast in style, noticing that I’d been given the more expensive menu and leaving the tout flat on his face. A great, smug feeling. After that I was off the airport and back in time to read the news headlines about the 23 killed in Bangkok riots. I got out just in time.

I quickly realised how happy I was to be back in HK, leaving in a under a month will not be fun. South East Asia is a great place to travel. The only negative, although it’s a pretty massive negative, is the excessive sex and drugs industries. I don’t want to be cruel on the people of South East Asia here. This problem only exists because so many westerners travelling here provide a huge market. It could annoy me when touts on the street offered me things, but they had every reason to think a white man in his early 20s would be interested so my frustration should really be directed that those tourists who have allowed this problem to thrive. This culture among many travellers is in your face everywhere, with many travellers you meet possessing anecdotes related to it all. The only country where it wasn’t so prevalent was Vietnam, perhaps one of the main reasons why it’s probably the country I’d be most likely to go back to. These problems certainly didn’t spoil my time however I had to be willing to overlook them and feel relatively comfortable with the knowledge that I was in the minority of travellers who didn’t come to this part of the world looking for cheap drugs. In both cases I was travelling with people who were in this minority with me which made matters far easier. Even when I was by myself, it certainly didn’t ruin my time and it would be sad if it put people off from coming to South East Asia. It’s cheap, fun, hot, safe and easy to get around. There’s loads of interesting things to see from beaches to jungles to mountains and from ancient temples to more recent fascinating, if not depressing, histories in places such as Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. All this is mixed with great food, friendly people and a brilliant, shambolic sense of uncertainty over what the future holds. To let the darker side that comes with tourism put you off would be a massive shame. 

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Photos

Katy and Jess
Showing off bags bought from Siem Reap; the ink was smudging already.

Me and Katy
Buckets

The 3 of us
Easy to see who's the most tanned! It's died down a bit after a few weeks.

Lonely Beach
Off Google due to my camera. I didn't go in peak season, so take away 75% of the people.