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Published: July 28th 2011
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Sihanoukville, right down south, was the French playground in the early 1900's. Today it's kind of like a Cambodian Skegness. Shops and street vendors selling bracelets, plastic models of Angkor Wat, fruit, pedicures, beads and other assorted tat are everywhere. On every beach we visited we didn't rest long before someone came up offered to de-fuzz us ('I do your hair leg?'😉, de-rough us ('I do you feet skin? It baaad, lady, let me get rid it) , braid us ('You wan caawn row, lady?) sell us bracelets ('Because you are friend for me, yes? You no buy now? Maybe laaaterrrr'😉 and massages and we soon uttered 'No thanks' before they'd even finished. Here, as in Siem Reap, there were signs up everywhere discouraging you from buying from the beach vendors, especially children who were meant to be going to the free schools the city provided. The constant pressure to buy stuff really annoyed Mike who eventually moved us up the beach and as far as away from the main strip as possible! It's a shame the touts and hawkers have no sense of personal space as the beaches would be lovely if they'd just give you a bit more space.
I understand they're trying to make a living, but I'd be more likely to buy something from someone who let me browse their goods in peace than someone who kept shoving stuff into my face and calling prices at me!
Bars and restaurants line the streets of 'Snooky' and hostels and hotels to suit most budgets abound.It's a good place to go if you're wanting to veg out for a bit as it has a couple huge english language cinemas and a lot of bars showing movies – all of which serve space cakes if that's your thing. We saw 'Machete' in the bar of the 'Top banana' hostel we were staying in and, believe me, you needed spasce cakes to enjoy it. We initially thought it was a spoof, but it took itself too seriously to be a spoof so we concluded it was just a shit film that somehow, bizarrely, featured de Niro. The only people enjoying it seemed to be a group of guys in front of us who we'd seen eat the space cake. Maybe we should have had some.
The room at the hostel was fairly comfy and brightly painted, with nice jungle-esque
gardens around it. We even had a little tropical frog visit us! We also met Des and Barb Gettenby on the beach one evening when we went for dinner. They were a retired Austrailian couple who were backpacking in their twilight years. Des was writing books on the subject and had already published a couple of hits back home. We got chatting and it turns out their daughter used to work in the Turf Locks back home in devon andthey knew Clive and Ginny, the owners, really well … small world!
At out hostel we met Greg, an affable, informative and funny guy who'd been backpacking for ages and had worked in Vietnam for a while. We chatted to him for a few hours about places to visit and he recommended Koh Russei, or Bamboo Island, just a short ferry ride away. He described it as an island with one budhget resort, a bar and lots of unspoilt beaches and beauty and, best of all, no touts or hawkers. We booked a ticket over the next morning.
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