Beach Life

After slogging hard through Vietnam, I had already decided that I was going to head south to the beaches of Sihanoukville for some much-needed R&R. In the morning I got myself hooked up with the wireless broadband I’d been craving all the way since Romblon, before catching a hot, uncomfortable coach to the sea. The road, at least, was flat and smooth (the result of a National Highway improvement programme that means the six busiest roads in Cambodia are actually passable by bus!), but I cocooned myself in trance and tried to ignore the unpleasant sensation of hot vinyl under my bum and a total dearth of legroom. At the start of the journey I’d seen a large horde of English getting on together. There were eight of them all told and I swiftly made up my mind not to get involved with such a large group…my thought being that hanging out with a big group of my fellow counrymen was something I could do quite easily at home and that I’d see and do more if I kept myself to myself. I was, in some respects, right…but I’m glad I didn’t stick to the original plan.
At a rest-stop I got chatting to one of the girls, who immediately insisted that I come and meet the rest of the gang. Jane, her boyfriend Phil and her brother Sid were with Tom and Adam from Manchester, Andy from Essex and Anton and Sandra from Brighton. They had all bumped into each other in various parts of Laos, China and Vietnam and had decided to hang out together for one obvious reason…they are all unbelievably sound people!
For the next week, I’m happy to say I did absolutely nothing but lie on the beach, play Frisbee, eat, drink and chat with this happy band of travellers. Down on Serendipity beach, calm and tranquil but for the exceedingly cute and very persistent beach urchins (more of whom later), every like-minded English traveller who came our way swelled the ranks until we had a veritable army. Mark (Aussie) and his girlfriend Angie (Canadian), whom I’d met through Mark and Mel in Hoi An, even turned up…and it turned out that Jane and the gang had met them before too. On one evening, when Fleur, Jo and Kirsty turned up from Saigon, there must have been at least twenty of us sprawled around the beach in front of Uncle Bob’s Bar.
The week was an endless blur of Fish Amok (the local coconut curry made with Barracuda), crayfish, fresh fruit, sunshine and saltwater. The beach kids (mostly homeless) continuously pestered you to buy there wares…cajoling, nagging, pleading or making puppy eyes to elicit promises of later business. Adam, whose good natured amiability made him an easy target, was literally festooned with the free embroidered bracelets they gave to their best customers.
Anton – a kindred spirit of the gentle giant variety – and I got seriously into our crayfish. Every day the lady would come up the beach with a basket on her head of freshly-cooked, foot-long crustaceans. To order, she shelled them, rubbed salt, pepper and lemon juice into their meaty flesh and watched with evident pleasure as ‘Wonton’ and I ploughed our way through an endless supply. We were buying in such bulk, she even gave us a wholesale discount.
Suffice to say we got battered pretty much every night (there’s always a happy hour on some drink or other!) and it was always a competition to see who could roll out of bed and onto the sand last. I must recommend the curative powers of clean seawater (and tropical sunshine of course!) to anyone suffering from a hangover…nothing perks you up better…and it certainly leaves you ready for the next night’s episode.
There isn’t much more to tell – white sand, turquoise sea, food, drink and the pleasure of good company…what more could a man need? After six days of doing nothing, I felt my batteries recharged enough to take on the rest of Cambodia.
Apologies for the lack of photos in this section – buying new batteries for my camera was such a big hassle, I didn’t manage it until the day I left. Bear in mind that this is the same person who didn’t walk more than 40 yards down the beach in either direction for the first three days…