On the Beach in Cambodia

I've been sleeping so much lately! I guess I'm getting a vacation from my vacation. But I do want to keep blogging, selfishly for my own recap of events when I'm old and gray, so this morning I typed up our tales of our trip to Cambodia.

The morning we were to leave Vietnam, I opened one eye and marvelled that I was awake before anyone else. Remembering that we had 7am bus tickets to Cambodia and therefore had set the alarm for 5:30am, I was perplexed that I was up before the dreadfully early alarm.

Wait a minute, I thought. There’s no way it’s earlier than 5:30. I checked my watch in a hurry and yelled in a panic, “guys, it’s after 6! The alarm didn’t go off.”

It was a mad dash in the room. Packing the backpacks takes time, and so does sharing a bathroom. Kevin determined that the hydro had gone out that night, causing the laptop to die, and therefore unable to fulfil its alarm clock duties. Power outages are somewhat typical around these parts, but normally they don't last long enough for laptop batteries to die.

But we made it with enough time to cram some “omelets to go” down our throats as we sat on the curb.

The bus was amazing. I mean, for $12 for a 6 hour ride, we expected it to be typical Asia- old, tattered, and rickety. Not so. It was really nice, and we even had our own stewardess who handed out water and snacks!

We breezed through customs and the VISA application process, which was a treat considering that it took us hours to get through Laos customs, and well, you know the trouble we had in Vietnam. This was so seamless, and before we knew it, we were in Cambodia. It’s like Laos- certainly not as developed as Vietnam.

We decided once we got to Phnom Penh (the capital city) that we were in need of some R&R. After all, we have been keeping a gruelling pace to see everything we want to in only a month. Enamoured with the bus company who had a bus leaving in just one hour for the coast, we decided it was time to hit the beach and subsequently purchased tickets for the 4 hour drive.

Kevin ran off to find an ATM to get some local currency. Getting money is easy in Asia- just stick your card in an ATM and voila! the local currency gets spit out of the machine. The banking service fees kill you for this privilege, but there’s not much alternative, and this way you don’t have to carry massive amounts of cash if you happen to get ripped off. They rarely take credit cards here- they like cold, hard cash, baby.

We told Kevin to be back at 2:15 as the bus left at 2:30. By 2:25 there was still no sign of Kevin, and we were getting worried. By 2:30 we were very anxious, especially as the bus was packed with people, ready to go. The bus company said, “Do not worry. We will wait for moment.”

2:40 the bus company had us hire a tuk-tuk to drive around the city and look for Kevin. Oddly, they didn’t want us to go with the tuk-tuk driver. I guess they just said, “look for some lost white guy.”

2:42 they asked if Meaghan and I would consider going by ourselves and he could take the bus the next morning. “Absolutely not,” we replied. “Can we change our tickets?” We asked. “No,” he said firmly.

2:45 they said they had to go. Our luggage had been shoved first in the bottom of the bus, so it was a bit of a gong show getting it back out. A lot of bags had to come out to get to ours. I didn’t miss the exasperation in the tones or faces of the bus workers. I wonder what they were saying in Cambodian. I did feel bad. I mean, we had a full bus of people we were holding up.

Sadly, the bus pulled away as Meaghan and I sat outside, surrounded with our backpacks, waiting for Kevin and an explanation, trying not to be too disappointed or annoyed.

I went in to change the tickets. The problem is that the change affected our return tickets, and additional tickets we had purchased to get to Siam Reap. I was changing them all, giving them the money they demanded for this, and looked out the window to see Kevin approaching.

The ticket office workers saw him as well; there was animated foreign gibber and they all got up excitedly, made cell phone calls and told me, “hurry, hurry!”

With speed that would make them a contender for the Olympics, they pulled up a van, shoved our stuff in, and said, “hurry! We catch the bus.”

And we did. This van zig zagged through traffic, Asia style, and delivered us to the bus that happened to be waiting on the side of the road for us when we got there. Yup, we had managed to hold up an entire bus of people for almost ½ hour. Talk about the walk of shame to the back of the bus as we took our seats.

Apparently some do-gooder offered to take Kevin to a bank machine, which wouldn’t spit out Cambodian currency, so he took him to another and another. Kevin told him he had to go to the bus station, and the driver took him to the ticketing station, which was the wrong one. The driver kept taking him to the wrong bus stations, and of course, it’s always hard to communicate in these countries.

It was a close call, but we made it.

When we got to Sihanoukville, our destination, we were assaulted by peddlers wanting to give us rides to hostels. I wasn’t in the mood for this at that point, but Meaghan worked out an agreement with one of them. He would take us around for a dollar to find a hostel that we were happy with.

“Ok,” I said, my back breaking from my pack. “Let’s do it.”

He led us to the taxi- which happened to be 3 scooters!

“Oh no, no, no,” I laughed. “This backpack is huge and weighs 40lbs, and I have this briefcase, which also weighs a lot and is pretty cumbersome.”

“No problem,” he said.

He pulled off my backpack and put it in front of him, in between him and the steering system. He was so short and it was so tall I am sure visibility was poor. He put the briefcase behind him and told me to get behind it. Well, I looked like an ostrich straddling that thing, my knees jutting way out into traffic. We teetered away, the others behind me on equally loaded scooters. I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity. As we got on the road, I felt the wind in my hair and remembered how much I love that feeling.

Kevin’s ride pulled up beside me. “Feel safe?”” He laughed. As soon as I saw him, I realized why the wind felt so good in my hair.

“They don’t wear helmets here, eh?” I said, as I looked at the seas of black heads with no helmets.

“Guess not,” He replied.

As we were driving along, me not having a lot of seat space due to the briefcase jammed between us, and him having the backpack right in front of him, we dodged and swerved other vehicles, Asia style. I was just thinking, “If only my poor mother saw us right now, she would have a heart attack...” when I heard a silly Asian song and realized with wide eyes what it was as my driver reached in his breast pocket and pulled out a cell phone.

“Allo?” He said, one hand to his ear, the other on the steering shaft.

He jibbered on in a foreign language. Kevin’s driver passed us again and Kevin just shook his head and laughed at the absurdity of the scene before him. I held my breath.

But we survived, once again.

They took us to a bar/restaurant/guesthouse directly on the beach. The restaurant was totally cool; big paupazon chairs littered the place and a sound system played some cool trancy music. The lighting cast a cozy ambience, and you could hear the waves of the ocean lapping the shore as there were no walls- just a roof for sun/rain coverage.

“Sold!” We said.

“Look at the room first,” the guy suggested (and we know better. but once in awhile get caught up in the moment and forget).

“I’d pay more for this place,” Meaghan said as Kevin went off to look at the room.

Kevin reported: “The good news is it’s only $4 per night for 3 of us. The bad news is, you get what you pay for. It’s pretty bad.”

But it had been a long day and we were tired. The room was pretty bad, but not worse than some of our accommodations, and the thought of staying on the ocean with such a cool restaurant to lounge around in was appealing, so we took it.

We lounged around in the paupazon chairs that night, eating fresh fruit and drinking tia mias, and listening to the ocean. We crashed early in our mosquito nets- I didn’t even survive an episode of The Office—and woke up 11 hours later.

Yesterday we didn’t do anything but laze around in the sun and eat and read and nap. At one point Meaghan and Dana and I got pedicures for $2.50 each. That evening we wandered down the coast and found a restaurant literally on the beach- they were grilling kebabs and the tables and chairs were jammed in the sand—and ate a delicious dinner.

We nursed our pink skin, crashed early again (so much sleeping here- I must have needed it!) and today we have another good half day on the beach, but due to time constraints, we have to catch the bus back to Phnom Penh this afternoon. It’s been an amazing couple of days. I love the sun and the beach!