Thursday, May 19, 2005
Long weekend
Welcome to my second installment from Cambodia.
Last weekend was a long weekend. Friday AND Monday were both public holidays in honour of the King's birthday.There are a lot of public holidays here... but apparently not many between next week, when there are another 2, and September. I believe November is about half public holidays!
So last weekend we took the opportunity to head for the beach. Possibly our last chance until the dry season returns around November. We went to Sihanoukville, the country's main beach area. It's not that nice compared to other beaches in SE Asia but it started to grow on me after a few days.
The trip didn't start too well when we motoed over to the bus station, in a chaotic area of town near the central markets, and realised we should have booked the bus. All 4 morning buses were full. We could have left at 12.30 but a swim was calling loudly and we wanted to leave right away. The options were minibus or taxi. We hooked up with a similarly stranded scary American women called Marge who was berating her 'travel agent'/moto driver for lying to her by saying she had a seat booked on the bus when she didn't... Eventually her guy found a minibus for the 3 of us and Marge stopped being scary. We each paid $4 for the 4hour trip which entitled us to one seat each - a valuable commodity in a minibus where 11 Cambodians were squashed into the 2 rows in front of us.
The bus stopped several times for food, toilet and other unknown reasons. Jono and I tried a couple of new foods from the roadside stops. In hindsight a bus trip is probably not the best time to be adventurous in this way, but we survived. We tried barbecued bananas, which were delicious and a steamed bun which Jono asked in Khmer if it had no meat and was told yes, vegetables... well, it was very tasty and we picked around the bits of meat that looked a bit undercooked. I did however give away to a little Khmer girl the pineapple I bought that was dipped into a bucket of water before it was handed to me. See, I am being careful with food!
I learnt some new terms in Sihanoukville, 'threaded' and 'braceleted for fruit' and I got both! Threaded is how they wax (as in legs) here. It's fascinating. A simple thread of cotton is held between the 'technician''s'' teeth and 2 hands and is twisted and manipulated to pull out each individual hair. It's very effective and not too painful.
Anyone who got 'braceleted for fruit' was obvious on the beach because they were wearing a distinctive colourful cotton bracelet. I was one of those foreign suckers and Jono appeared to be but only because I succumbed twice and gave him one of the bracelets. The 'scam' is these cute charismatic little khmer kids with very good english ask you to buy a bag of cut fruit from them and offer to make you a 'friendship bracelet for free'. The fruit is quite good but the scam is you pay them $2 US which is a bit much in these parts.
Despite being constantly hassled by hawkers selling bracelets, lobsters, chips, massages, manicures, sarongs etc etc etc, it was a relaxing few days and the water was very lovely and warm and didn't always have rubbish floating around... We also ate some really good barbecued seafood meals from a beach side restaurant called 'same same but different' - a common _expression here (for example used by little boys to explain why you should by their bracelets and not one from one of their other 50 friends...). We met quite a few other expats there including 4 who work at the Cambodia Daily newspaper which was interesting.
On one day we did a tour of Ream National Park with 2 of our new friends Lee and Sam. At the breakfast they give you before the tour we met 2 other Aussies, Leah and Jono. To find this funny, you would need to know that our Jono's middle name is Lee... (maybe you had to be there)!
The tour was good but nothing spectacular. The sign at the NP said there 'may have been sightings of leopards and tigers and to keep your eyed peeled to be the first to see them'. Unsurprisingly we didn't see any... We did sort of get invited to a Cambodian wedding though! Our tour guide made us promise to come to his wedding in a couple of months and thanked us in advance for our presents... we clarified that he did mean presents and not presence! He was very sweet but hmmm.... we'll see!
Despite our bungalow being rustic - but not in a good way - it had a lovely view and overall we had a good 4 days - and ended up BOOKING the air con bus back to Phnom Penh!
In other news I have 2 jobs! One volunteer with the Cambodia Defenders Project (human rights law, criminal defence law) and one teaching English a couple of hours a day. I have to seriously brush up on my grammar. I will write more about work next time.
Each email I will try to write some funny snippets about Cambodia:
- the most people I've seen so far on one moto is 4 adults and 1 child.
- 'petrol stations'for motos consist of plastic soft drink bottles full of petrol on the side of the road.
-because of the above... fortunately and surprisingly, very few Cambodians seem to smoke.
Last weekend was a long weekend. Friday AND Monday were both public holidays in honour of the King's birthday.There are a lot of public holidays here... but apparently not many between next week, when there are another 2, and September. I believe November is about half public holidays!
So last weekend we took the opportunity to head for the beach. Possibly our last chance until the dry season returns around November. We went to Sihanoukville, the country's main beach area. It's not that nice compared to other beaches in SE Asia but it started to grow on me after a few days.
The trip didn't start too well when we motoed over to the bus station, in a chaotic area of town near the central markets, and realised we should have booked the bus. All 4 morning buses were full. We could have left at 12.30 but a swim was calling loudly and we wanted to leave right away. The options were minibus or taxi. We hooked up with a similarly stranded scary American women called Marge who was berating her 'travel agent'/moto driver for lying to her by saying she had a seat booked on the bus when she didn't... Eventually her guy found a minibus for the 3 of us and Marge stopped being scary. We each paid $4 for the 4hour trip which entitled us to one seat each - a valuable commodity in a minibus where 11 Cambodians were squashed into the 2 rows in front of us.
The bus stopped several times for food, toilet and other unknown reasons. Jono and I tried a couple of new foods from the roadside stops. In hindsight a bus trip is probably not the best time to be adventurous in this way, but we survived. We tried barbecued bananas, which were delicious and a steamed bun which Jono asked in Khmer if it had no meat and was told yes, vegetables... well, it was very tasty and we picked around the bits of meat that looked a bit undercooked. I did however give away to a little Khmer girl the pineapple I bought that was dipped into a bucket of water before it was handed to me. See, I am being careful with food!
I learnt some new terms in Sihanoukville, 'threaded' and 'braceleted for fruit' and I got both! Threaded is how they wax (as in legs) here. It's fascinating. A simple thread of cotton is held between the 'technician''s'' teeth and 2 hands and is twisted and manipulated to pull out each individual hair. It's very effective and not too painful.
Anyone who got 'braceleted for fruit' was obvious on the beach because they were wearing a distinctive colourful cotton bracelet. I was one of those foreign suckers and Jono appeared to be but only because I succumbed twice and gave him one of the bracelets. The 'scam' is these cute charismatic little khmer kids with very good english ask you to buy a bag of cut fruit from them and offer to make you a 'friendship bracelet for free'. The fruit is quite good but the scam is you pay them $2 US which is a bit much in these parts.
Despite being constantly hassled by hawkers selling bracelets, lobsters, chips, massages, manicures, sarongs etc etc etc, it was a relaxing few days and the water was very lovely and warm and didn't always have rubbish floating around... We also ate some really good barbecued seafood meals from a beach side restaurant called 'same same but different' - a common _expression here (for example used by little boys to explain why you should by their bracelets and not one from one of their other 50 friends...). We met quite a few other expats there including 4 who work at the Cambodia Daily newspaper which was interesting.
On one day we did a tour of Ream National Park with 2 of our new friends Lee and Sam. At the breakfast they give you before the tour we met 2 other Aussies, Leah and Jono. To find this funny, you would need to know that our Jono's middle name is Lee... (maybe you had to be there)!
The tour was good but nothing spectacular. The sign at the NP said there 'may have been sightings of leopards and tigers and to keep your eyed peeled to be the first to see them'. Unsurprisingly we didn't see any... We did sort of get invited to a Cambodian wedding though! Our tour guide made us promise to come to his wedding in a couple of months and thanked us in advance for our presents... we clarified that he did mean presents and not presence! He was very sweet but hmmm.... we'll see!
Despite our bungalow being rustic - but not in a good way - it had a lovely view and overall we had a good 4 days - and ended up BOOKING the air con bus back to Phnom Penh!
In other news I have 2 jobs! One volunteer with the Cambodia Defenders Project (human rights law, criminal defence law) and one teaching English a couple of hours a day. I have to seriously brush up on my grammar. I will write more about work next time.
Each email I will try to write some funny snippets about Cambodia:
- the most people I've seen so far on one moto is 4 adults and 1 child.
- 'petrol stations'for motos consist of plastic soft drink bottles full of petrol on the side of the road.
-because of the above... fortunately and surprisingly, very few Cambodians seem to smoke.
