Blogging and Me

I don’t read blogs unless I come across one with some useful information about the places I want to go. So when I learned that Maya was blogging I was curious and thought it could be a good way of sharing experience. I attempted a travel blog and started writing “useful” things but the outcome was very unsatisfactory. It was boring and not that useful. It was also not that easy to get inspired in internet cafés. But now that I have my own little laptop, Susu, I decided to give it another try. But first is the reason why I gave up before.

This is what I originally wrote about Cambodia in a hot and uncomfortable internet café in Bali at one go. I’ll resist the temptation to edit it so you see why I haven’t blogged so far.

Cambodia First round

WARNING
This is my first ever blog try.
It may contain anything.
It may also contain nuts.

A blood red welcome

After a few extra days of waiting in Trat on the Thai side of the border and really enjoying the little town energy there we took the minibus to the border afternoon 22nd of December. Although it was one of the dustier borders around this side of the world, it was also one of the smoother border crossings, thanks to Maya's nationality being a member of ASEAN with Cambodia and me being smart enough to buy an e-visa online. The land borders of Cambodia are very famous with the officials' scams to rip incomers off their 30+ US dollars instead of the official 20 so I agreed to pay 5 extra online to avoid the hustle (am I smart?) and it worked fast.

As soon as we crossed the main gate and even before we got to see any Cambodian officers we were spotted and "taken care of" by motodops, the motorbike drivers who can help you with almost everything. We agreed to get a ride downtown (10 kms) to Koh Kong on two bikes and refused to be involved in any drug story (I know it's the dreads and the earrings but I really don't do it anymore!) Somehow the first sunset we witnessed while very slowly riding behind the bikes was also one of the most colorful sunsets we have seen for a long while, a blood red welcome. We also passed by a very posh luxury building right next to the border area which we learned was a casino perhaps owned by some retired generals. It looked incredibly out of place in front of the dusty road and in comparison to all that we would see the next day. We found a cheap room in a place called Koh Kong Riverside and turned off.

Meet the Dust

We have thought we could stay there one day and move the next so that we see one more place in this neglected country of our maps but we woke up and walked downtown for breakfast and met the dust. It seems there were some asphalting works way back in history but there were also some strong rains and much mud which luckily dried before we arrived and turned into fine dust that's everywhere. Not pleasant. We had a local breakfast (nice soup with free tea) and paid in Thai Bahts. and found the bus station where we saw how true the reports of the fullness of local minibuses were. They were pretty unbelievable, so many people in such a small minivan. I think this happens all over the poorer parts of SE Asia but somehow they seemed fuller than the ones I saw in Sumatra but, I know, Java is coming.

We agreed to pay 100 Bahts more (3 $) and take seats on a shared Toyota Camry taxi with AC. There we were only 6 grown-ups, 2 kids and the driver and the ride was much nicer than we feared after we had read the stuff on the internet because they've been pretty busy paving all the way from the border to Sre Ambel (connecting it to the way between Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville). Even the 4 famous short but time consuming ferry rides over the rivers are coming to an end. two of the bridges were near to finished and one already opened. I really enjoyed the 3 rides on the flat boats with creative designs on the tropical surroundings that reminded me images from Apocalypse Now. It is such a beautiful scene, yet so polluted in our memories with wars and in reality with land mines.

Our taxi driver decided to help us experience the minivan rides and put us on one from Sre Ambel to Sihanoukville but we were given the front seat only for ourselves (although our bags didn't seem as comfortable dangling on top of the two motorbikes loaded on the back of the minivan.)

Wrong timing once again

By the time we arrived in Sihanoukville, ate something and made it to the famous beach with an impossible name to spell or pronounce (it amazes me how it can be famous at all with such a name as Ochheuteal - I copy-pasted this- shall we blame this on the French influence?) it was already couple of hours to sunset. Leaving bags with Maya I started the room hunt. Wow, although the beach is not so much built by resort hotels it was so crowded, it was immediately clear that the Khmer Rouge didn't make it this far in their landmining campaign. It was packed (we later learned that it was also Sunday and the beach was full of local tourists from Phnom Penh).

With good hope I started from the "Serendipity" beach side and although the place looked, well, OK, it was full. The only room that was available for that night only was 30$. So I came back to the second option of the roadside cheapies. GST full, next door to it 30$, Cobra brothel, next door full... until I made it to the last hotel on the beach fully wet in sweat. Jasmine Hotel had a room for us for 10$ and that seemed to be the only option for the night. It also had attached bathroom and cable TV, so I said it's OK for a couple of days. Just before I went to pick up Maya the receptionist said "but you know tomorrow it is not 10$", "what? why?", "All rooms are 50 % more expensive because it's the holiday season!" And it dawned on me that the effects of Christmas tourism was what was making me sweat. Got Maya and managed to be in the perfectly still sea for the sunset.

Change is good

We started the day early, had breakfast on the beach and I said goodbye to find a room on the Victory Hill area. I took a motodop and checked Sakal bungalows, full, Bungalow village, full, rainy season full, and finally got a room in a place with a good view from the restaurant called Chez Mari Yann. When we were moving in Maya saw another sign nearby which even looked better with same prices and after we had difficulty sleeping because of the private disco of the guest house we stayed, in the morning once more we moved to Sunset Garden Inn.

It came as a strange surprise that all these cheap rooms (5$) even came with attached bathrooms and always cable TV. But I could enjoy a little bit of it after a year of abstinence (well I had one day with a TV for myself in Jinhong, China and that's pretty much the thing. I don't count Ms.Loh's TV in Penang because it was only Malaysian and I saw mostly only 7 o'clock news there.) After we moved to Mari Yann I also had an interesting time trying to find a bike to rent. All the foreigners were riding bikes and there seemed to be none left for us. After an hour of walking and searching, I found one, took it to the gas station, filled the tank and saw the tire was flat, took it back and changed it, transferred the gas and made it back home just before the sunset.

And it was Christmas. We passed by all the Victory Hill bars with "hostess" girls dressed in Santa clothes waiting for the sexpats. It also seems Cambodia is some destination for the sexpatriates. There are so many fat men with tiny Asian women around it hurts the eyes.

So what's special about Sihanoukville?

This place was chosen as Cambodia's main port after it became clear that using the Mae Kong river delta which is in Vietnam was not so good anymore, in 1952. So there are no historical, cultural things around. The beaches are nice long yellow sand beaches and the sea is pretty shallow. The first day we sampled all the nearby beaches on the map, Victory, Hawaii, Independence, Sokha, Occhi-whatever and Otres and decided the one nearest to us Victory, was better for us. Somehow it was hard to understand the Antonov plane on the beach but it was more peaceful than the others for sure.

The following days we also discovered the Prek Treng beach to the north of town and were happily surprised that we were the only ones on this long white beach. We decided to go off-road and came across the first protected forest we saw in Cambodia, the Kbal Chhay watershed. I felt like some Indiana Jones on wheels crossing the very dodgy wooden bridge on the river and felt even more strange paying 0.5$ for it at the end. The waterfall was great but pretty dry because of the dry season. And it was not very pleasant to find yet another flat tire when we were leaving. Luckily we were not very far from the waterfall picnic site cafes so we found a man who did the repairs but we had to cancel our plans to go to Ream National Park and headed back.

Kampot

[To be continued]

[At this point the writer realized that blogging his travels in internet cafés while traveling is not really happening. The places are hot and noisy, very uninspiring. After reading what he had already written and feeling utterly bored and embarrassed about it, he went between deleting it and keeping it private and he decided to add a note and stop feeling bad about not adding more on his travel blog until the day that he starts traveling with his little lap-top. The day is coming in some months hopefully. Till than, have patience.]

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So that day has come and I’m hoping to have a tastier blog this time. I’d love to hear your comments. I may need to be motivated :)