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sihanoukville after dark
This was taken at 9 pm on our first night in Sihanoukville. We had just checked into the Queen Hill Resort earlier that day, one of the more 'upscale' hotels in Sihanoukville; a cluster of cottages perched on rocky cliffs overlooking the ocean. In my search for the most untouched part of Cambodia's coast, I dragged Rajnee to Otres beach, farthest away from what was already minimal tourist action in Sihanoukville. The setting was pristine, and at first sight of the charming cottages with rustic balconies, I envisioned lazy afternoons catnapping on the low chair washed by golden rays and the meditative sounds of crashing waves below.
But there was a minor catch, the beach was so isolated that no one bothered to fix an ongoing electricity outage, so there was no light after dark- or about 7pm nightly, and worse yet- no A/C or fan in the 30+ degree humidity. And why would they fix it? I think the hotel workers viewed us as a hassle more than anything because there were no other guests in sight willing to rough it out except us crazies. And by us I mean me, fixated on getting an 'into the wild' experience in coastal Cambodia, dragging Rajnee down with me. There was one restaurant, scratch that- a shack that sold insipid food- on the beach, we had $15 between the two of us and there was no ATM for miles. We blew all our cash on booze, a plate of dry fried rice and watched the most spectacular sunset go down. See "Finally Cambodia" below. Note: I did not enhance the sunset shots- it was just that unreal. My ambitious resolve for rustic beachside living was shattered after one sleepless night, and I knew I had to go A/C or bust on the more popular stretch of sand, and since I was already selling out for comfort, why not add cable TV to the criteria as well...
Later that first night, I set my camera on long-exposure and aimed into the dark depths of crashing waves. This was the result. I love that it captures what the eye could not see, the fluidity of the ocean and clouds in one particular 60 second time in space.
the calm before the "holy-shit-in-my-pants"
Words or images alone cannot begin to replicate what I saw when we sped on a tiny boat in the middle of the Indian Ocean minutes before a storm to end all storms. The rain was already coming down, but I was so astounded by what I was seeing that I waved frantically at the driver to stop the boat.
The light seemed to shine through the thick clouds and light up the water from underneath. It felt like an ephemeral dream state, from which I was about to wake any moment. I took a hundred photos in rapid succession, afraid to lose even a microsecond of the transient scene...realizing this was probably the only time in my life I'd be hunched with my camera on a fisher boat in the Indian Ocean, and thinking efff my life for not having a tripod or a steady surface..
Anyways, this picture deserves to be viewed larger here.
And here's the post that it corresponds with, "A morning in paradise, an afternoon in hell."
acid tripping and cambodian footwear
If my dear readers can recall back to a particular episode involving my entrusting a young Cambodian tuk-tuk driver with a $1 commission to adorn my feet in any way he saw fit, I think this photo would be well-appreciated.
leopard skin
I'm starting to question my ability to stay in paradise even for a week with the restlessness that is building as I type. I have finished Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour: Search for the Perfect Meal, Marquez's "A Hundred Years of Solitude", and some pulitzer prize winner I seem to have forgotten the name of. All in three days. I spent four hours on the internet yesterday, followed by the killing of some brain cells on CNN and HBO. These asian versions of the TV channels really suck horrendous balls. Every time I switch on HBO its a retro action movie with bad wigs and spandex or another rerun of Bee Movie. Then when it threw me a curve ball last night with two episodes of Flight of the Conchords II, I was beside myself with joy.
Its the little things in life, people. Today I did what every penny-pinching backpacker should do when on vacation, abuse the amenities of 5 star resorts you cannot afford to stay in. In this case my victim was Sohka beach, the nicest stretch of sand in Sihanoukville, currently being monopolized by a gigantic hotel of the same name. I tanned until I started shedding a layer of skin, feared being mistaken as a leopard, and rushed to the spa to get a salt scrub treatment that would hopefully return me to a more human, uniform tone. The poor woman scrubbed as hard as she could, but only succeeded in spreading the pattern like a skin disease all over my shoulder. It was a tender and sad sight, me in the bathtub after my treatment, helpless while the little cambodian lady rubbed the edges of my peel with matronly vigor. Now I have my very own archipelago on my shoulder, quickly spreading to become a large landmass floating in a sea of burnt caramel. Yum.
Its the little things in life, people. Today I did what every penny-pinching backpacker should do when on vacation, abuse the amenities of 5 star resorts you cannot afford to stay in. In this case my victim was Sohka beach, the nicest stretch of sand in Sihanoukville, currently being monopolized by a gigantic hotel of the same name. I tanned until I started shedding a layer of skin, feared being mistaken as a leopard, and rushed to the spa to get a salt scrub treatment that would hopefully return me to a more human, uniform tone. The poor woman scrubbed as hard as she could, but only succeeded in spreading the pattern like a skin disease all over my shoulder. It was a tender and sad sight, me in the bathtub after my treatment, helpless while the little cambodian lady rubbed the edges of my peel with matronly vigor. Now I have my very own archipelago on my shoulder, quickly spreading to become a large landmass floating in a sea of burnt caramel. Yum.
serendipity beach
The waves are crashing against the sand ten feet from where I sit right now. I've become used to the sounds of the ocean, even though it is a bit too loud and violent to be considered 'calming', it has somehow become part of my being, along with the rodeo style 'live music' that drones nightly and the sound of wooden bangles clanging on the trays and arms of children hovering over your sprawling star-fish-formationed self whining "bray-ceh-letttt, buy wohh-nnnne".
The difference between Cambodia's beaches and the beaches in the rest of south east asia is in the trees. They are the farthest thing evocative of a tropical locale, in fact rather reminiscent of the evergreens in the True North as immortalized by the Group of Seven. Maybe that's why people can't understand this as an exotic vacation spot yet, where are the palm trees? And the frangipanis? The charm of Sihanoukville lies in the decided lack of such tropical cliches, and offers the few explorers who venture here the promise of real peace, unadulterated by throngs of long-haired, full-moon party pilgrims in birkenstocks who shower in vodka buckets and jump through rings of fire (no offence Heavy D, the vid of you jumping through fire is one of my most prized possessions).Since I can't access photos yet, I have attached a photo quite true of what I see eighteen hours a day. This is accredited to Globe Trotter 2000 on Flickr.a morning in paradise, an afternoon in hell
We arrived in Koh Kong yesterday, a tiny city at the border of Cambodia that most tourists use merely as a stop-over on route to Thailand. The journey by bus seemed to last an eternity. Don't get me wrong, the scenery outside was stupendous, rice paddies and lotus flowers turning into rolling hills and valleys. It was the television screens inside the bus, projecting music videos to cambodian love songs full-blast, that was, oh how do I put it delicately, like putting in eyedrops with turpentine. Ok it was like watching fat kids drown in a tub of bacon fat, Ricky Gervais in a speedo, a sight so terrifying you can't look away. If there's one industry headed for big things in Cambodia, its the entertainment industry. Go long now.
There is little to do in Koh Kong other than extreme trekking in the Cardammon mountains and visiting Koh Kong island, which we planned for the next day, so we made the natural choice to enjoy a very long happy hour in an air-conditioned wi-fied cafe instead. It was raining most of the evening anyways. We ate copious amounts of pizza, pasta, and fries to supplement our hard life and fell asleep watching "Not Another Teen Movie" on StarTV, a work of cinematic genius if you ask me, brilliance in screen writing... "let's make like a tree and... branch out of here...", "I am the token black guy. I'm just supposed to smile and stay out of the conversation and say things like: damn, shit, and that is wack.", "good night pumpkin tits.", "damn, that shit is wack.".... bahahahah seriously can it get better than this??Anyways, this morning we rented a speedboat to explore the largest island off the coast of Cambodia, fourty minutes from shore. The beauty of the island was so unexpected it knocked my clothes off. Well, since we were sunbathing it was inevitable, but it was truly something like what I'd have imagined Alex Garland's fabled beach to be like. In contrast to Ko Phi Phi, this actually felt unchartered, we were the only life to be seen for miles, sharing the land with thousands of small cream-coloured crabs scampering in and out of tiny sand dunes. The water was a million shades of crystal, and behind us, for as far as I could see water, were green hills and coconut palms. Like, this can't even be real, I kept thinking to myself. I think we played for what could have been hours. All too soon, our driver started waving at us to head back. I heard something about choppy waters in the afternoons here, so reluctantly we returned to the boat. The waves were larger now, rising a meter high and bringing our boat with it, but were no real cause for alarm, yet. I have experienced choppy waters before, and after a stomach churning episode on the Thai seas, I thought I had seen it all. And at least this boat, albeit plastic and alarmingly evocative of an oversized fisherprice toy, actually worked in contrast to our speed boat in Laos. We kept on our merry way, until the sun disappeared, and the sky turned rather...ominous. This is when it started raining heavily, the waves rose even higher and we came down each time in a crash so thunderous I swear it made my insides shift. Seriously it was like if by some sick design hell had a waterpark.I couldn't see, had trouble swallowing, tried to formulate prayers in my mind, but kept envisioning the final scenes from The Perfect Storm. Rajnee and I squinted at each other through the crashing waves hitting our faces and torrents of rain water and communicated last words silently. I mean, being stranded on the Mekong is one thing, at least I could see both banks of the river and could probably float to each effortlessly in 3 minutes. This was the freaking Indian Ocean with NO LAND IN SIGHT. And we were on a TOY BOAT. If my organs were functioning properly I think I would have crapped my bathing suit. A million times. After what seemed an eternity, and legitimately was probably an hour, we finally saw land, and the waters calmed almost instantly. We were carried by the waves now instead of going against the current. I've never been so happy to stand on firm ground. Shaking, we handed our smiling driver 60$, repeating "Akun, akun", the Cambodian word for "thank you". The sun came out again as if on cue, saying "hah! you survived this one...but maybe not so lucky next time"
Sihanoukville tomorrow! Ps... I stupidly forgot my camera cord back in Bangkok, so I cannot upload any pics until I get back. :( You'll have to do with my stupendous descriptions of my adventures for now. x
after the flood
When it rains, Phnom Penh floods. Early this morning we were woken by torrents of rain washing down on our guesthouse roof. Slowly lulled back to sleep, we didn't get up again until two hours later, when we drew the curtains to see a city under water.
I did not realize how essential drainage systems are. As the city came alive with the morning sounds of commerce, little children, elderly ladies, vintage mercedes, tuk-tuk drivers, and food vendors waded their way through knee-deep murky waters, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary. I realized I needed a sturdy pair of flip flops if I wanted to do any sightseeing today.
Our chosen tuk-tuk driver for the day showed up at the hotel at 9:30 as agreed upon the previous night when he drove us to the guesthouse. The competition is fierce in Cambodia for tuk-tuks and they are camped out in hoards on every corner trying to score a full-day comission taking tourists around the city. I talked him into going to the market across the "river" and buying me a pair of rubber shoes, the crappier the better, were my instructions. "I will give you only $1, get the cheapest thing you see." Five minutes later, he returns beaming. Carefully wrapped in a black plastic bag was a pair of the most horrendous sandals I have ever seen. Brightly patterned with images of jelly beans and lollipops, it featured a fist-sized head of Mini Mouse, wobbling vigorously on the thong of each shoe. I wanted to cry, to applaud this twenty-something Cambodian boy's brave fashion sense, but I just laughed, and wore them all day with pride.
I promise to attach a picture of said eye-candy at my earliest convenience.
We did manage to keep our feet dry, sort of, as the tuk-tuk sped through Phnom traffic towards the Killing Fields memorial outside the city. This was one of the most interesting and thoroughly disturbing tourist sites I have been to in South East Asia, the eerie nearness of its story and its significant consequences on Cambodia today impacting me much more than even Angkor Wat. There were over 8000 skulls stacked on top of eachother in a grand monument that from the outside looks like the image of calm. Walking through the grounds was gently treading on the mass burial graves of generations of civilians, entire families of old and young. The Khmer Rouge abided by the philosophy of "exterminating grass from the roots up", to prevent revenge in later years by the children of these prisoners. Rajnee and I discussed on the way back the nearness of these events, and the seeming inability for us to learn from these barbaric acts towards humanity, even today.
There are a number of restaurants in Phnom Penh whose proceeds go towards great causes. We stopped at one of these, called "Friends" for lunch. The grounds included a children's educational centre, a handicraft store, mini manicure and massage parlour, and a superb restaurant training former street youth for the fine dining industry in Cambodia. The place was beautifully decorated with local artwork and had a menu so inventive I wanted to try everything. Persimmon lychee smoothie anyone? We had five different small plates to share, and I have to say it is some of the best food I've had in SE Asia. It was truly inspiring to see the youth serving and cooking with huge smiles on their faces, and to support this venture was a blessing.
Since I last wrote, I left China, evidently. I went to Siem Reap for a couple of days and visited the spectacular ruins of Angkor Wat. Pictures to follow. Tomorrow we are taking a bus to Koh Kong, a conservation area with the second largest virgin rain forest in SE Asia and some of the most beautiful islands that rival Ko Samui, just without the tourists, yet.
Until next time.
x
