In Sihanoukville

This morning I woke up early to knocking on the door from my guest house manager waking me up for the bus ride to Sihanoukville. The ride was not too unpleasant. I was taken to the bus terminal on a bus from my guest house then we went to Sihanoukville. I slept most of the way, or I should say tried to sleep. The road was pretty good because they just finished building four bridges over rivers along the way and repaving the road. I guess just last year you had to take four ferries in order to get from Sihanoukville to Koh Krong.


As soon as I got off the bus there were taxi drivers all over me but there were enough tourist that I got out pretty good. A nice moto driver ended up taking me to the place I asked him to, which I guess is not that normal. When I got to the guesthouse I got a room and then tried to call Sarah (she called me on the bus from Bangkok to Trat and gave me the Cambodian number). Again I have lost my phone. It must have fell out in the bus, but now its really gone. I'm not sure if I'm going to get a new phone because now it seems like its not destined for me to have a phone in Cambodia. I still might buy another one but for at least a few days I'll see what its like without one. At the guesthouse I just borrowed a phone from worker there to call Sarah.


It turned out her, Dharma and Gabe had come to Sihanoukville the day before in the afternoon and evening. They were staying at a guest house only a couple minute walk from me. Its the guest house that most of the moto's take the people to no mater what they say, even my moto driver mentioned it to me. So I walked down there and it is really good to see close friends after you've traveled with them for a while, and then seperated for a while. I'm used to seeing them while traveling and know what it is like, plus now its the four of us that know each other the best as a group in Seattle also.


We all caught up on what we have been doing and soon after I got there I ran into the British girls that I met in Sukhothai. I ate some food with them while the rest of them got ready to go to the beach. We also caught up on what we've been doing because they have gone to Lao, Vietnam before coming to Cambodia 5 days ago. But I did realize how diferent it is catching up with close friends compared to people you've spent 2 days hanging out with.


The beach was interesting. There were really comfortable chairs everywhere under umbrellas with shade, a nice perfect sand beach, and little kids selling bracelets and all kinds of stuff everywhere. Dharma and Gabe started buying a couple bracelets and soon there was a group of 5 to 10. I did buy a newspaper from one but then tried to just sit and read. Some of them were really pushy but they were only kids. It definately affected the beach experience. One of the kids said that down the beach where most of the tourists are that they are not allowed to go.

The sunset tonight




I haven't done much else with my day, just catching up and eating food. Now everyone is tired because last night they all partied for Sarah's birthday, and I'm tired because I've traveled a lot. We are all trying to figure out what we are doing in Cambodia. I think Dharma and Gabe will be around tomorrow and then go back to Thailand the next day, and Sarah and I are going to try to travel to gether for the next week or so before she moves on to somewhere else and then I see Penom Phen and Anchor wat before I go towards the Loas boarder.


Cambodia is a very different county. You can tell just from the roads, but the desperatness of the people for a sell is also apparent. The guy's have been telling me that the harassing by kids like today has been almost a constant along the tourist trail. I have to keep telling myself that I am in a different country becuase I was getting so used to Thailand. The people here act different, they look different, and have such a different history. I'll go through the tourist trail but I'm excited to see some towns most people don't see also. Well, I'm tired and need to sleep so thats all I got. Goodnight or good morning.