02/12/2009 During the bus ride, we met a couple of punky Canadian girls, one called Lacey – I can’t remember the other one’s name. We’d been recommened a hostel called Monkey Republic by Cat, and the two girls were going to try for the free accommodation at Utopia – a nightclub in town. The bus arrived in Sihanoukville, and the usual deluge of moto and tuk-tuk drivers surrounded the bus. Andy refused to get a moto as usual, so we hopped in a tuk-tuk to Monkey Republic. We arrived there to find the Canadian girls leaving, having found that the place was full. So we all wandered down to Cool Banana instead and got rooms there. They didn’t have a twin room available for Andy and I, only a double room, but the staff guy checking us in was staying in a twin room by himself, I guess because the toilet wasn’t working properly, so he ended up moving out of there into the double and giving us the twin room. We figured out how to make the toilet work anyway. So the result was that we had to wait for quite a while before they re-made up the room, so we sat at the bar, chatted to the two German guys that ran the place and the two Canadian girls and had a few drinks. The German guys knew of a place in town that had a special offer on a pork roast dinner that night. So we all trooped off to there.
The place we had to get to turned out to be a long way from the main strip. Andy and I tried to walk there, only to give up, thinking we must have gone the wrong way or missed it, and catch a tuk-tuk. This took us even further out of town, although we did eventually reach Snooky’s place. The dinner was indeed excellent, and we rounded it off with desserts at the cookie shop back in the main strip. Then it was off to Monkey Republic for drinks, where we played pool with a very pretty Cambodian girl (we spent some time trying to figure out if she was a hooker or not, she was a little cagey about her job) and a couple of Swedish guys. After Monkey Republic we went to Utopia, the nightclub in town, which surprisingly was starting to empty at midnight. I carried on to a beach bar with one of the swedish guys and partied all night, ending up in another 24 hour bar with Donna when that closed. We shared a moto to the 24 hour bar. The driver dropped it when we were driving across the sand, but we were going so slowly at that point we just ended up standing up with the bike between our legs. I decided to call it a night at 7am, and took a moto back to the hostel to arrive back at the room just as Andy was getting up….
A quick sleep later and we headed out to the beach. Unfortunately it seems much of the beach was washed away a couple of weeks before we got there. I’ve been trying to find out why, but so far no luck. Many of the beach bars therefore have no beach – the sea comes right up to them. After the first 10 or so bars there’s enough beach to put a deckchair out, so this is where we headed. On the way there we passed the bar I’d been in the previous night. Donna was still there, in the same chair, at 14:00 the next day, still drinking Red Bull. Impressive stamina! Andy and I carried on to the deckchairs and spent the day sunning ourselves, before meeting up with Anja further up the beach. By this time the sun was going down and we got some awesome sunset shots! Anja had met up with Lena, another German girl. Dinner was at Monkey Republic, followed by more pool and dancing and merriment at Utopia and the beach bar. We met some very funny and very camp gay Cambodian guys that night, and Anja decided to go paddling in the water, for some reason.
The next day I met up with Anja and Lena again as Andy wasn’t feeling well. Later on we found Andy on the beach. He’d bumped into Ellen again. We generally got pestered by people selling things all day. One woman wanted to cut my toenails, another guy wanted to fix my (unbroken) sandals. Various boys wanted to sell us bracelets. One offered me a free bracelet if I beat him at pool, otherwise I’d have to buy one. So I beat him but gave him a little bit of money for it anyway. I suspect he still made a profit. I also picked up a couple of free bracelets from boys who insisted on making them for me, despite my insistence there was no way I was going to buy one. I think the idea is to guilt you into buying one. Later on we ended up at Monkey Republic for dinner again. The Cambodian girl was there again, this time she had a variety of deep-fried insects. I recall her eating a big spider, later on she gave me a cricket, which I ate despite Andy and Anja’s aghast stares. I did spend a long time staring at it, until I asked her how to eat it and she broke off the legs and wings. It didn’t taste at all bad actually, although pretty dry. Generally that night was quite quiet though.
The following day was our last day in Sihanoukville. Anja, Lena and I went on a boat ride around some of the local beaches and islands, which finished up with watching the sunset out at sea. Andy wasn’t feeling too well again. The ride was organised by one of the bars, way up the beach, which I guess has trouble attracting people otherwise. I guess the idea is when the boat ride finishes you go to their bar for food and drinks. We saw lots of pretty beaches, did some swimming around, played frisbee in the water with a russian guy and a french guy and saw the promised sunset. After sunset it did start to get pretty cold though, and the party became a little miserable. Anja and I then headed for dinner, at Monkey Republic once again (it was easy…) and discovered Andy was in the cinema. So we joined him to watch some football at a bar across the road.
The next day Andy and I were getting a bus to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and Anja was heading to Phnom Penh.
