On the southern coast of Cambodia, a bundle of boozy beaches clustered around a small town called Sihanoukville lays in wait for tired travellers after cheap drugs and a tan. To kill time over the busy Chinese New Year period, when internal travel in Southeast Asia is difficult, we spent five days bumming around here working on our melanin levels and gaining weight.
Notable moments: Taking a boat out to snorkel around empty islands, even though we didn’t see any fish it was really pretty and fun to spend a day at sea. Exploring surrounding beaches where we found night markets selling Mexican turquoise tarot readings and, (as always), cocktails. Eating really really well – women on the beach wander past with baskets of fruit on their heads or buckets of fresh baby squid to roast over their shoulders, and we even found decent Japanese food! Being mistaken for a Swede ten times a day was better than having ‘g’day mate’ shouted at you from across the road. And because of the heat, we spent one lazy day lying on couches in an air-conditioned room watching movies and chewing Haribo which was just what we needed.
We also spent a night at a cushioned bar chatting to the owner, who’s a character I won’t be forgetting in a hurry: Momo owns an absinthe bar and is so rich he’s almost definitely a drug lord. Included in his collection of cars is a Ford truck the size of a house (literally… the tyres are my height), a sports car with green sparkly stripes and a very loud motorbike. And those were just the ones that we saw! Definitely an interesting guy, but we were careful to stay away from ‘Momo’s special sheesha’ which included month-long marinated marijuana and other mysterious ingredients. The absinthe, supposedly an ‘experience’, could more accurately be described as ‘painful’… hopefully the closest I’ll ever get to pan-galactic gargle blasters and we definitely paid for it in the morning. Worth it for a fun night out with some new friends, but I am kind of glad it’s not legal in Oz.
It was also pretty hilarious observing the chaos that occurs around Chinese New Year. For a few days around the end of January and the beginning of February, conversations are frequently punctuated by the loud popping of firecrackers. People stop working and flock to the beach, and everyone swims in their clothes and a lifejacket. Serendipity Beach defied its name and was full to the brim with thousands of Cambodians swimming in jeans and shirts (?), floating in black rubber tubes, and consuming piles of prawns, crabs, squid, and whiskey. It made me really jealous! Compared to our one night celebration on NYE, which is always a let down anyway, Chinese New Year seems like a way better way to do it. Why stop the party after day one?
Sihanoukville has been a relaxed introduction to Cambodia but I think I’m ready to move on to the ‘real deal’… up next is Phnom Penh and then Siem Reap. While I’ve liked the laid back lifestyle and pharmacies where you can buy literally any drug you desire, from antibiotics to Ridolin and more (don’t worry mum we stuck to coconut oil and Beroccas), it’s time to dive back into travelling and stop holidaying.
Coconuts and conch shells,
PT
The beginnings of the Chinese New Year festivities on the beach
Pedicure on the sand… life’s rough
SQUIDS
inneedofdirections 