21. Otres Beach, parte the first: Settling in

We awoke in the morning feeling refreshed. We were promptly informed by the miserable receptionist that we need to get out because they are fully booked for that night. We later discover this is because they booked out all of the rooms for a family do. Their own family do. It was nice of them to tell us this when we checked in! I wasn’t too bothered in any case because the whole lot of them are miserable as sin, and the room wasn’t that great.

So with that, we headed out.

The Otres beach area is basically a stretch of dirt road maybe half a mile in length. It runs next to the sea, with a row of guest houses and bar/restaurants on each side. It’s not built up at all. Quite the opposite: the road doesn’t have any tarmac on it and there are cows and chickens running about all over the place. It’s quaint and rustic but I got the feeling that it wouldn’t be long before it became built up.

About halfway along the “strip” we stopped for breakfast at a bar called Richies on the beach side. A scottish family were running it, so and had quite a few home comforts on the menu. I immediately ordered bangers and mash and devoured it the second it arrived. I quickly warmed to the place. It felt a bit like the cheers bar. Well: Maybe if the cheers bar had been made of bamboo, built on a beach. And you could smoke joints at the bar. 
It had a family of multinational bar flies who all got along in the interest of the common good, which I gathered to be getting stoned and going for swims in the sea. In fact this lifestyle I gathered was typical of the Otres beach area. It had a strong community feel with the ex-pats and Cambodian nationals getting along in the sunshine.

Something that had been on my mind was that there were only a few days to go before the Christmas and New Year season kicked in. My vague requirement was that I spend it somewhere sunny by the sea, but was aware that lots of people might want the same thing, and so rooms might all fill up. Otres beach seemed to fit my requirements very nicely, though. Pat seemed to be of the same opinion, and so with that in mind we decided to find somewhere to stay for Christmas, which would then take us up to the end of our Cambodian visas.

After some reconnaissance we found “Lim Hour” bungalows which had rooms free. They said they were ok with us staying there until after new year, although we were warned that prices might increase a little as it gets busier. We’re cool with that so take a room. In order to try and save money we decided to share a twin bungalow.

And thus we had properly settled at Otres, our home for the next month.

20. Sihanoukville

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.

19. Phnom Penh, parte the laste: The Palace

I spent  the last few days in Phnom Penh taking in some of the sights like the history museum and doing some less interesting things like visiting another gym (as it had been a while since doing anything active) and going to a big mall to grab some bits and pieces.

All to quickly it was the day before we were to head on to Sihanoukville. That evening to celebrate Pat and I decided to consume a titanic volume of beer in various establishments along the river front. Once that mission was complete we headed home. On the way back we once again passed the kings palace. This time nobody was there, as opposed to the last time when numerous locals were camped out in front. The only person I could see was one guard asleep in a hammock near the entrance. If anyone wanted to attempt a coup of the monarchy, I thought aloud, then that night would have been an excellent time.

The palace was a bit of a magnet for moths

We passed the guard and came to a point where the wall was slightly lower than at other points. Our keen sense of exploration, combined with our inebriation slightly trumped our newfound reverence for Cambodian culture. I decided to pull myself up onto the wall to take a look into the ground of the palace.It was quite dark and I couldn't really see anything, so decided to get back down before I upset anybody.
We decided that this was successful proof that invading the country would be a cinch I hope that nobody learns of our drunken and abortive attempt to invade the country. I think the safest way to do that is to write about it here on the internet.

The ok guesthouse turned out to actually be not just ok, but pretty good. All of the staff were great and there was a lot of rapport.
For example one day one of the staff said to me,
"Hey, you got a problem with me, man?". appearing to square up for a fight,
I wasn't sure if he was joking, so a little uncertainly I assumed he was and replied "Yeah, I've got a problem with you"
He was joking, and proceeded to cheerfully box my midriff. I suppose in retrospect that we did appear to be big fans of Khmer boxing, as it was the first thing we went to see when getting to town. So it became a running joke between me and him. Every time we met there was another pretend outrage that we needed to square off about.

All too quickly the day of departure came about. It was with a little regret that we had to leave because I had very much enjoyed my time in the Cambodian capital. A minibus that we had booked rolled up to the guesthouse and we clambered aboard and headed off for Sihanoukville.

18. Phnom Penh, Parte the seconde: Killing Fields

We had a general plan for our time in the city. It was to spend a few more days there, and then head down to the coastal town of Sihanoukville.

Pat and I had arranged to do a tour of the S-21 genocide museum and the Choueng Ek killing fields, and the person we naturally asked to take us was the ex-boxer driver who to the khmer boxing and the river front. It was clear that he had decided that he was our dedicated chauffeur, so welcomed us warmly whenever we emerged from the guest house ahead of any of the other drivers and took us where we wanted to go.

It was sad and unbelievable to learn about what had happened, I'll avoid describing it all in this blog, because that's not what it is for but I'd recommend reading a little about it. It certainly put a new perspective on my visit to the country, to think that as little as 30 years ago a third of the population of the country had been wiped out.
So we walked around the old school that had been used to imprison the political prisoners. Following that we took an audio tour of the killing fields, and learned about those. One chilling fact that stuck with me was that after a rainfall they need to walk around and clear away the human bones that have risen to the surface.

Sobering

Many of the tuk tuk hawkers tended to offer a package which included what we had done (killing fields and the genocide museum), followed by a trip to a range where you could shoot some real guns. I thought that was a pretty strange thing to want to do having just visited sites famed for mass execution. So we didn't do that.

17. Phnom Penh, Parte the firste: Khmer Boxing

All of the roads I'd been on in Cambodia were really flat, and straight and long. For one things this lead me to believe that the country actually didn't have any hills. I still don't know if it does, to be honest. Despite the long straight roads everyone still seemed to drive like a complete maniac. Our minivan driver was no exception on our journey to Phnom Pehn, careening around all the other traffic with his hand permanently glued to the horn.
About an hour from the capital, the motorway (well it was only 1 lane) (not that this stopped people from using the side of the road all the time) (or any bit of the road not occupied with an object, for that matter) descended into a dusty, rocky, gravelly mess. Apparently it was undergoing some sort of rejuvenation. The driver, unconcerned by the deterioration of the road surface, continued on at breakneck pace. After about 10 minutes, somewhat unsurprisingly, one of the tyres blew. He had a spare though, a little to my surprise. I has assumed that his laissez faire attitude towards safety on the road would also apply to preparing for such things as a flat tyre.

So we arrived in Phnom Pehn in one piece and proceeded to shop around for a tuk tuk. After finding one we took a mini tour of the several guest houses that we had earmarked ahead of setting out from Siem Reap. It took some time as we discover that the ones we wanted were either full or a bit too pricey. Our driver finally suggested one called "OK Guest House". I found it to be ok. We took a couple of rooms there (only $7 a night) and settled in.

The guest house seemed rather popular with tuk tuk drivers for some reason, many relaxed in the street outside and seemed to filter in and out of the front lobby / restaurant area that opened out onto the street and where the common area was. The drivers were quite friendly and chatty, and thanks to a tip from one of them we learn there was going to be a fairly big Khmer boxing fight in the city, part of the national championship. This sounded like fun, so the driver that mentioned it took us.

Khmer boxing

It was very busy at the arena. There was a film crew there for TV coverage. There was even a cordoned off area especially for a large group of gamblers, who smoked profusely and waggled bits of paper at eachother. Our driver joined us in the arena as well.

It was entertaining to watch the fights, I couldn't tell you any more detail than that, really. I wasn't sure if there was match rigging going on, but one in one of the bouts a fighter was knocked clean out within 2 punches, so I did wonder. This made the gaggle of smoking gamblers hoot and yell in disapproval. Or it might have been approval, it was difficult to tell.
The driver seemed to be especially in to the whole thing, miming the punches and wincing emphatically. He told us on the way back that he actually used to do Khmer boxing.

The next day I explored the city a little. Cambodia historically had been a French colony, and this was clear from many French influences in some of the structures and leafy open spaces. The traffic was quite sketchy. It mostly comprised of scooters. On some of the bigger roads there was no break in the flow, and so you simply had to walk out into it and hope that they would avoid you.

That evening was begun inauspiciously with some drop dead exciting admin. Pat's bank were asking him to confirm his identity by sending a fax or some such. We embarked on our quest but despite being in the capital city, finding somewhere with fax technology proved nigh on impossible. We spent a good couple of hours attempting to find somewhere to do it with no success.
Eventually we ended up asking our driver from earlier if he knew anywhere. Indeed he did. Turns out it was in the one place we didn't check, about 10 minutes from our guest house along the river front. We thanked him and before long it was all sorted. On the way back we had some food and a fair few drinks. We went via the palace of the king of Cambodia. It was very well lit up and spectacular. There were lots of locals outside the palace, sat on mats, praying, selling or eating food and just generally hanging out. We speculated inconclusively as to what they were doing there, before getting back near midnight a little tipsy and very tired.

The driver was somehow still there and awake. He greeted us cordially and bade us good night. I started to suspect he lived in his tuk tuk.