Stuck in Sihanoukville

On a peninsula on Cambodia’s south-western coast is the town of Sihanoukville, a conglomeration of three towns really, Victory Hill, Serendipity Beach and the Downtown Sihanoukville area. I arrived at the Downtown bus station on Friday night, the night of the Lunar New Year, around 7:30. The five hour journey from Cambodia’s capital,Phnom Penh, saw vast tan fields, tiny stilt-house villages and more than a handful of those full-bodied white cows roaming randomly.

It was dark. After picking up my pack, I busted through the throngs of tuk-tuk drivers to a nearby phone stand to make some calls to various guest houses around town. All were booked. So I walked around the downtown area, where firecrackers popped and trucks full of people sped by, apparently this was a celebration, but I was not in the mood to celebrate. I was tired and I wanted to find a place to sleep.

I searched everywhere, but could not find a thing. Every moto driver and tuk-tuk operator assured me that there were no vacancies in town, and I should have believed them. Finally, after nearly two hours of looking, I found a moto driver and asked him to find me a place, anywhere. He took me to Victory Hill, and after going to a few places we found a guest house with only one room left, for $20!

Damn, that blew my $20 per day budget very fast…but I had no choice.

Later, I bought the driver a beer for helping me out.

The next day I found another place that had a room for $5 per night, and that’s where I’ve been since. But also, on that same day, I started to get sick. First it was a stomach thing, I’ll spare the details, but after two days it became a full-blown fever and headache. Now, I’m still sick and I don’t want to chance a long day of travel in this condition. Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll be well enough to move on. Four days of sitting around in misery certainly put a wrench in my plans, part of which was to volunteer at an orphanage in Takeo, a small town to the south-east of Sihanoukville. But Cambodia feels good, I’ll surely return.

-chris

ps: I found an interesting website with good travel writing. Read this one.

In Cambodia

Getting into this country was confusing and frustrating, one of the most trying parts of my trip. The border guards at the overland crossing at Poipet will do anything to extort a few extra dollars from would be visa-seekers. The signs are clearly marked, but that doesn’t stop them from demanding $5 to $10 more. They show no shame.

Once passed the border, travelers are confronted by mobs of ‘taxi’ drivers offering trips to Siem Reap, some 150 km down the road. That was to be my destination, but I didn’t want to pay the taxi drivers for the ride. I was hoping for a public bus or something, but after walking around for nearly two hours looking for the bus station, we gave up called it a night. We found a hotel and crashed, only to wake up early the next day and do it all over again.

 We found the bus station, and we found the bus going to Siem Reap. But the driver went right by, without even a glace at my frantically waving hand. This birthday was turning out to be a tough day, and it wasn’t even 9 a.m. yet.

Finally we took a taxi, which ended up costing $12 per person, the most I’ve ever spent on a taxi since I’ve been in Asia. We had not choice after-all, and in the end I was glad to have A/C and be on the road, bumpy and dusty as it may have been. 

I spent the evening of my birthday with a bowl of curry with coconut and a few Angkor beers. I later found a bar with a Foosball table and played a few games with some random friends. After a few more beers, I headed out and met more drunk friends on the street (aptly named “Pub Street”). I finally passed out around 3 a.m. It was the first birthday that I spent with people I’ve never met in longer than I can remember, but it was good.

I next day I slept in ’till noon. Then I met up with some friends who arrived in Siem Reap that day. We didn’t stay up too late because we had all planned to go to Angkor Wat for sunrise the following morning. (I didn’t get up in time, but I looked out the window in the small hours of the morning and it was cloudy, so I felt justified).

When I finally awoke and made my way to the temples area it was nearing 9 a.m. I bought my ticket and began the trek around the temple grounds. The place was huge.

I saw the temples and later will go into detail about them, but for now you should know that you MUST see this to believe it and appreciate its grandeur.

So far, Cambodia is more good than bad. Angkor is mind blowing, and the people have a familiarity with foreigners resulting from many years of dealing with them, and as a result, don’t treat us much different from other people. That’s refreshing, but sometimes it’s not always like this. Sometimes the ‘hard sell’ tactics of tuk-tuk drivers and ‘tour guides’ gets to be a little stressful, especially for a traveller on an extremely tight budget such as myself.