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July 14, 2004
25th – First ‘day’ in Sihanoukville
Continental breakfast, internet (deadly slow, but at least I could use my laptop), picked up laundry, checked out the beaches on my rented Honda Dream ($3/day) and found out that the lonely planet’s inside cover description is correct – ‘empty beaches’. My god, it’s crazy, I was expecting something a little more developed than this…. That’ll teach me to go somewhere without researching it! (yeah, yeah, I can deal with it, I know….. but if I knew it was like this, I probably WOULD have done a visa run and spent more time in Thailand). I enjoy having reasonable speed internet, mobile reception, places to stay, eat and drink on the beach, with roads that are more than just sand dunes – so shoot me!
Serendipity (Occhuteal) Beach
Click here for a walking videoclip of the beach.
In addition to that, the sand part of beaches here are not all that deep and they have waves! They remind me more of Sydney-like beaches…. Not ‘bad’, yet far from the gloriousness of southern Thailand. I’m definitely going back there again! And yes, I ‘could’ go back there even now, but that would waste a US$38 visa I’ve already paid for, and I do need to get back into the swing of things, like figuring out some method of paying for all this beach time. Anyhow, this place (Bungalow Village) is quite nice. It’s tucked away, so the privacy aspect is quite nice (for only the second time, I’m typing away on my balcony, swinging in the hammock. :))
It’s become apparent to me again how poor and poorly paid Cambodians are, and thus the things they do in order to get barang (not farang, like Thailand) money. For example, I was extremely upset with the situation at visa control, as can be read in a previous post. In addition to this, the moto taxi drivers are many times more eager to get your business than in Thailand (in Sihanoukville at least). Fortunately, this being a still relatively undeveloped town, people aren’t as likely to completely rip you off, their asking prices are a lot more realistic. (ie. They might only start off with a 30-100% markup, as opposed to a 200-1000% markup, as has been found in tourist-centric locations). In Cambodia, laundry is charged by the piece, not the kilogram, which is interesting. I thought I’d probably pay more, but it came out pretty similarly priced to what I’ve been paying in Thailand (500riel per item here, 40baht per Kg in Thailand, a full load is around 3kg). I’m getting around a week per cycle, which is not too bad… but this also means I’ve enough clothes to be able to dump some if I really felt I was carrying too much.
Posted by Dan at July 14, 2004 02:35 AM