Sihanoukville (6-9 Dec 12)

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Obnoxious American alert!

So on the minibus ride from Kampot to Sihanoukville, I had an interesting encounter with a rather arrogant American dude. Well, not quite dude, he was more the old, cranky, retired kind, with long, shaggy hair, moustache, and ripped clothes and shorts spending his remaining years in Cambodia-type.

Anyway, as my minibus went around Kampot picking up passengers from their respective guesthouses, we came across this guy. First of all, he took a pretty long time gathering his things and settling his bill with the guesthouse etc. You'd have thought one would have paid up and gotten ready if he were waiting for a bus. And by the time he finally approached the minibus, and when the driver ushered him to the seats in the rear along with all the other passengers, he uttered quite audibly, "Oh no, I'm not getting in the back with a million other people", and promptly sat himself in the front.

So about twenty minutes into the ride, he suddenly mentioned to the driver that his passport was still at the guesthouse back in Kampot. He demanded that we turn back to pick it up, that it wasn't his fault cos the receptionist hadn't returned it to him, and without it, he was "f*cked". He then called the receptionist on his cellphone and asked her to instruct the driver to turn back. Well the other passengers and I weren't exactly thrilled about possibly having to make this unexpected detour, so a French lady on the minibus tried to tell him to get off and take a motorbike back himself, to which he replied, "Shut the f*ck up!"

This of course didn't go down well at all with the other passengers (eight of us), so along with the driver's help and with his blessing, we threw the guy out with his luggage, leaving him stranded on the highway. Well it'd only been about twenty minutes into our ride, so we weren't that far away yet, so he should've been fine.

It's funny too how everyone on the minibus including the driver clapped and cheered once we were on our way again. The French lady also recorded the latter parts of the whole incident on camera, and said she was going to put it up on Youtube!

And of course subsequently when we all discussed the matter, we all pretty much agreed that we would have been willing to turn back if he had been apologetic and polite about it, rather than the almost unbelievably self-centred manner in which he acted. So you learn something from that.

Which brings me to Sihanoukville, aka Snookyville or sometimes just Snooky.

This is Cambodia's premier (and pretty much only real) beach resort. A rather sprawling town with seven beaches in total, Snooky made its name in the 1950s amongst the nouveau riche Cambodians back then, but then fell into tragic disarray after the revolution, and during the Pol Pot years several of the buildings were used by the Khmer Rouge for target practice. Apparently as late as the early 90s, when the place started finding favour again amongst some intrepid backpackers, many of the buildings still bore the pock-mark scars of bombs and bullets.

Fast-forward another twenty years or so, and today Snooky already bears the hallmarks of yet another beach resort increasingly suffering the fate of overly-rapid development, or Pattaya-risation as I like to think of it. Several of the originally pristine beaches (including the romantically-named Serendipity Beach) are now cluttered with tacky bars, and the accompanying crowd and trash. Fumes from the jet skis and banana boats fill the air along with the lingering odour of stale liquor.

But all is not lost. There are still a couple of beaches left in good old Snooky which retain some of the magic from the old days. Fortunately, I'd met a French-Canadian couple back in Kampot who told me that Otres was the place to go, and how right they were. But of course, as with all things good, word gets out, and even now Otres is beginning to see more sizeable crowds, with correspondingly price hikes. For now though, I could lose myself at least momentarily in the relatively quiet beach, serenaded to sleep by the gentle lapping waves on the idyllic Cambodian south coast...

It's funny how my original plan from six months ago was to somehow end up on one of Thailand's famous beaches at the end of my trip, on my way back home to Singapore. Well I hadn't quite anticipated maxing out my Thai visa so soon, so that plan had to be altered, but I guess I got my wish after all.

Stayed at Moonlight Rock Guesthouse.

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Photos

Otres Beach
It'll get there eventually, but not quite just yet. Otres is supposedly the newest and cleanest of the seven Sihanoukville beaches, and has only quite recently become popular with the travelling crowd. Prices here starting to move up quickly though.

Phsar Ream
Traffic jam in Cambodia!

Moonlight Rock
The atmospheric bar of the guesthouse, where I slept on the second floor. Yes Nirvana (plugged) and reggae blaring late into the night, along with the loud chatter of tipsy farang (or barang, as they call it here). And I still stayed three nights!

Otres Beach
4km of this.

Otres Beach
Night scene. USD5 BBQ with draught beer, salad, chips, garlic bread, beef, chicken, and marlin (yes, the Hemingway kind).

Moonlight Rock
Probably officially the most spartan room I've stayed in out of the sixty-odd places I've been these past six months of so. And not the cheapest either, at USD7, even more than the atmospheric Pepper Guesthouse just 2h away in Kampot. Otres prices are clearly on the move. This room brings new meaning to the description Adrian Landin (www.thebeautifuloccupation.com), whom I met in Kanchanaburi back in July, uses, which is "bed, fan and lock". Except in this case, it's not even a bed, it's just a mattress!

Phsar Ream Bay
Relatively untouched stretch away from the main areas of Sihanoukville.

Phsar Ream Bay
There's a small community with stilted water-houses in these wetlands.

Ream Guesthouse
Tuna pasta Aglio Olio prepared by Marco, the Italian proprietor of this guesthouse that I stumbled across motorcycling in the area. About as authentic Italiano as you can get in Southern Cambodia. The guesthouse was a beauty too, with its own private jetty where you could have breakfast, along an otherwise almost deserted stretch of beach in a the quiet Phsar Ream Bay.

Ream Guesthouse
What's wrong with this picture?

Airport Club
No weapons please, we're Cambodian -- that includes guns, grenades, knives and...cameras!

Serendipity Beach
As its name suggests, I'm sure it was once magical too...