In case you're interested I'll catch you up on where I'm at. I'm currently in Cambodia in
Sihanoukville and getting here was bananas.
After leaving Bangkok, Evan, 2 of his friends and I went to
Ko Chang Island (Thailand) and laid on the beach for almost a week. Days were filled with sleeping in, eating fruit and drinking fruit shakes for breakfast on the ocean, going to the beach, girl watching, playing disc, napping, reading, listening to music and checking my email. I saw a waterfall one day but otherwise I was quite unproductive. In our time there we stayed on a couple different beaches and stayed at a handful of bungalows which are rooms on stilts with asbestos roves covered with some sort of leaves. In the evenings bars would take turns having "parties" and I'd usually do some drinking at them.
To get around on the Island you either rent a scooter or hire a truck with seat in the back. There was western food readily available but I ate mostly Thai food which for the most part is spicy and sweet (read: not healthy). The Island was gorgeous and very accessible to tourists, but not quite as developed as some other beach spots, so that was awesome. It was pretty cheap. Housing was about 6 dollars a night and meals varied from 2-5 dollars. The seafood was cheap and delicious. The first night we had a seafood
bbq on the beach. Amazing.
I met some awesome people, had a pseudo going away party at the end: it was a great week of partying. By the end of the week we got Island fever and needed a change of pace so we decided to head to
Sihanoukville in Cambodia. There were some tours right from the Island but their prices were reputed to be rip offs, and some Swedish girls I wanted to avoid were taking it so we decided to do it the hard way. Truck from the beach to the ferry, ferry to main land, truck to the bus depot, ignore further offers from trucks, get lied to by
Thai's about when the bus leaves to the Cambodian border and arrive at the border.
The border was insane. As soon as we got out of the bus we noticed there weren't many foreigners. A handful of men come approach us as we stepped out of the bus. They wanted to carry out bags for us, commit to other transportation, fill out forms for us, sell us cigarettes, give them money for begging and so on. It was quite overwhelming and Evan and his friend Dave kept being polite so they hounded us the whole way.
After handing about 35 dollars to a man in a white
tshirt in an unlikely room to get my visa I was lead to a booth where a man took my picture and a few minutes later gave me my passport. I had read about scams and so the whole process had me on edge, and the people hounding us didn't help. I think the price I paid was a little higher than what I'd heard but what can you do?
After we had our visa's sorted out we noticed there were no buses, and no foreigners. One man said he would drive us where we wanted to go for a little over 100
USD. That price seemed insane but we needed a ride at least to a bus station so we tipped the guys that helped us and hoped in the taxi. We had tipped so much that we ran out of small bills and had to blow some of them off. One of the guys hounding us tried to get in the taxi with us, I had to politely shove him out.
The taxi driver sped off saying "fucking guys, fucking guys, why they try to come in..." His English was good. We drove in the nearest town which was not modern to say the least, saw few foreigners, did the math on how much we were getting ripped off and decided to pay the driver to drive us all the way to
Sihanoukville in his air conditioned Toyota Camry with a LCD screen on one visor. Deluxe right?
We pulled out of the town and began our comfortable journey. Shortly after leaving the town the highway turned into a road that was red dirt. It looked like we were driving into a mining site on mars. There were boulders on the side of the road and machinery everywhere. The experience became more surreal once the sun started settings making the sky red too. The foliage was different and I really felt like I was on Mars.
At this point I am really uncomfortable because we're driving up and down winding red dirt roads on Mars, it's getting dark, there are no road signs and no other traffic. What the fuck is going on?! We go a little further we come to a river bank and stop. The road ends here. The driver honks a couple times and says we can get out. On the sides of us are poor locals, dogs, shacks with leaves for roves and little shops. I get out and put on my backpack. Along the river I see strange boats pass by. I get distracted by an engine starting across the river. It was a tiny wooden ferry. It slowly made it's way across the river. The taxi driver asks us for about 2 bucks each and we pay him.
Once the ferry arrived on our bank the taxi driver backed on, and we walked on as well. I guess some locals had been waiting for someone to pay to cross because many climbed on with us. The ferry was propelled by a car engine mounted on a pivot a foot or two above the boat's surface, and was fitted with a long pipe with rotor blades on its end which of course were submersed into the water. We made our way across the river, the taxi pulled onto the bank and pulled away a little too fast for my liking. He did stop but, I was so anxious. We got in and continued on our way.
The road got worse before it got better. It had rained earlier in the day, and in the days previous as well. The red dirt turned to mud and we were led down narrow detours that I'm very surprised we were able to get through. Up muddy hills, down muddy hills, around huge boulders. It was proper fucked.
Anyway, 4 ferry crossings, 1 meal from locals and 5 hours later we arrived in
Sihanoukville. The driver took us to a place he knew. It was a modern building. A man lead us down to our rooms, there was an older man passed out on the steps next to a pool of vomit. Once we got to our rooms the man helping us kicked out a couple large cockroaches. It was 5 dollars a night with a shower so we took it. The driver started asking for tips from us so I closed my door, laid in bed, noticed gecko's on the wall and crashed.
In the morning I went to the restaurant in the resort and met Evan. Evan joked about how I had said about 10 word the whole ride up. Evan sings bad pop songs when he's nervous and I get quiet. Ha. After returning to my room I noticed it reeked of urine so we packed up and moved next door. That brings us to today.
Today we got a taxi to take us to a bank because we'd run out of useful currency. Afterwards we asked to be taken to the beach, the driver said it was a 4km walk back to the resort and we decided to give it a go. We hoped down on the beach, took 2 steps when a man blew a
whistle and pointed to a sign: "Resort Guests Only". Fuck. We turned around, and decided to climb around the rocky corner. I thought it was a bit ambitious but it turned out OK. The rocks were all sorts of different shapes, sizes and colors and had been shaped by the ocean.
We found a bag in the rocks complete with journal. Once we reached the next beach we found an amazing restaurant, and ate some "pizza". As we sat enjoying our feast I read aloud the journal. I think I may try to contact the Journal's author, it details a long voyage. While in the restaurant we arranged for a snorkeling trip (10$ each). That should be fun. We moved down the beach, saw the Swedish girls I didn't want to see, sat in the some lounge chairs, and got
harassed by mine victims and people selling crap for the next 3 hours.
Let the good times roll.
