I had assumed the bus to Sihanoukville would take mere moments. How wrong I was. It rattled and beeped it's way to the coast over the course of the entire day. Eventually we got to the town. The bus purposefully parked miles away from the town center in some random gravelly expanse on a hill where tuk tuk drivers hovered like vultures. Pat and I, seasoned travelers that we were, decided to be very brutal hagglers. We ambled past the punters uttering phrases like “Nope, 5 dollars? what a rip off. I’m going to walk!” I think we had both actually convinced ourselves that we would walk to town, so we were all but walking down the hill when we thought better of it since the sun had set and it was late. We took an offer of $4.
It was dark by the time we got into what looked like the center of town. Some advance reading of Lonely Planet had yielded a few options of guest houses we could stay at. However spurred on with our success at tuk tuk haggling we felt like we could easily wing it, so we just jumped out of the tuk tuk, ignoring whatever the driver was saying and aimlessly wandered off.
There was a problem with our tactic, however, which was that it seemed that there was no obviously condensed and useful arrangement of accommodation where we were. Our old driver seemed fully aware of this and just hovered around and followed us.
We had heard mutterings in the traveler grapevine that Otres beach is way nicer than Sihanoukville, so between us we agreed that we should abandon town and head there right away. Our predatory tuk tuk driver friend was eager to jump on this. “Oh Otres beach? Yes I can easily take you there but its verrrry far, easily 15 dollars!” We had an idea from maps that it wasn't too far and that $15 dollars was a bit expensive, so headed down a likely looking street that seemed to contain some activity and found another tuk tuk. Our old driver wasn't going to lose the business so easily so hurried over to us. He entered into something of a bidding war with the second driver, but couldn't match the newcomers competitive fare of $10. We thanked them both and headed off.
It turned out that is it was actually quite a drive from Sihanoukville to Otres beach. There were no lights at all except for one dim lamp at the front of the tuk tuk so we couldn't really see a thing around us. It was literally pitch black and a little unnerving. The vehicle was completely open sided and it went bumping and jolting over god knows what in the darkness for what seemed like hours.
Suddenly I felt some animal around the size of a pig noiselessly thud onto my feet from somewhere in the blackness. I let out a girlish shriek and flailed madly to extract my legs from under the beast. I nearly elbowed Pat in the head in the process. We were both lucky to not fall out of the speeding tuk tuk.
After a moment there was no further movement so I came to realise it couldn't be an alive thing. A tentative fumble revealed that the “animal” was actually Pat's back pack which must have slipped down from the seat in front of us. I breathed a sigh of relief and laughed off my slightly wounded dignity.
We arrived at our destination, which we only assumed by the fact that the tuk tuk stopped, although there was a distinct lack of signs, buildings or even lights to indicate that this was somewhere travelers might want to rest their heads.
At this point we were not really in the mood to shop around so we walked for a bit and took a room in the first guest house we could actually see. We were greeted by the most miserable person in existence at the front desk who begrudginly took our money. It was late, and being quite exhausted we both got our head down fairly immediately.
It was dark by the time we got into what looked like the center of town. Some advance reading of Lonely Planet had yielded a few options of guest houses we could stay at. However spurred on with our success at tuk tuk haggling we felt like we could easily wing it, so we just jumped out of the tuk tuk, ignoring whatever the driver was saying and aimlessly wandered off.
There was a problem with our tactic, however, which was that it seemed that there was no obviously condensed and useful arrangement of accommodation where we were. Our old driver seemed fully aware of this and just hovered around and followed us.
We had heard mutterings in the traveler grapevine that Otres beach is way nicer than Sihanoukville, so between us we agreed that we should abandon town and head there right away. Our predatory tuk tuk driver friend was eager to jump on this. “Oh Otres beach? Yes I can easily take you there but its verrrry far, easily 15 dollars!” We had an idea from maps that it wasn't too far and that $15 dollars was a bit expensive, so headed down a likely looking street that seemed to contain some activity and found another tuk tuk. Our old driver wasn't going to lose the business so easily so hurried over to us. He entered into something of a bidding war with the second driver, but couldn't match the newcomers competitive fare of $10. We thanked them both and headed off.
It turned out that is it was actually quite a drive from Sihanoukville to Otres beach. There were no lights at all except for one dim lamp at the front of the tuk tuk so we couldn't really see a thing around us. It was literally pitch black and a little unnerving. The vehicle was completely open sided and it went bumping and jolting over god knows what in the darkness for what seemed like hours.
Suddenly I felt some animal around the size of a pig noiselessly thud onto my feet from somewhere in the blackness. I let out a girlish shriek and flailed madly to extract my legs from under the beast. I nearly elbowed Pat in the head in the process. We were both lucky to not fall out of the speeding tuk tuk.
After a moment there was no further movement so I came to realise it couldn't be an alive thing. A tentative fumble revealed that the “animal” was actually Pat's back pack which must have slipped down from the seat in front of us. I breathed a sigh of relief and laughed off my slightly wounded dignity.
We arrived at our destination, which we only assumed by the fact that the tuk tuk stopped, although there was a distinct lack of signs, buildings or even lights to indicate that this was somewhere travelers might want to rest their heads.
At this point we were not really in the mood to shop around so we walked for a bit and took a room in the first guest house we could actually see. We were greeted by the most miserable person in existence at the front desk who begrudginly took our money. It was late, and being quite exhausted we both got our head down fairly immediately.
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