Sihanoukville = woot!

Hooray for vacation! I have finally managed to see something of Cambodia outside of my own town and Phnom Penh. And what a something it is!

Sihanoukville (Cambodians call it Kampong Saum) is a city in southern Cambodia known for its beautiful beaches. My concept of it came mostly from watching the weather report every night in my village with a pang of desire; the provinces show little variation in temperature from one another, with the notable exception of Sihanoukville, which is usually 3 to 10 degrees C cooler than everywhere else.



What can I say? What more do you need than white sand, green water, blue sky, and an ocean breeze? (Seriously, that last component is key.) A few companies operate snorkeling and beach-lying-around tours to small nearby islands out of those boats. There's no dock or pier, though, so you have to wade out to the boat, valuables on your head, and clamber aboard as the boat pitched in the waves. No ballerina, I nearly fell out of the boat immediately after making it up. I repeated the act 6 hours later while waiting for other people to disembark, so I basically felt awesome about myself. But it didn't matter! Because lying on the beach cures everything. The snorkeling itself was only OK, as the marine life wasn't particularly colorful. Also, the captain's warnings of cutting our feet on the coral that rose up near the surface of the water and the scary Darth Vader sound coming out of my breathing tube gave me some anxiety. The best part of the day was Koh Russei (pic below), a lightly populated island where we ate fresh seafood for lunch and played in the nearly deserted waves.



The other big highlight, for me at least, was the seemingly endless selection of Western food. Don't get me wrong, I love Khmer food. But being able to eat french fries on a deck chair on that beach....well, it took away all the stress of the summer: the stress of knowing that I didn't yet have any secondary projects in the works, the stress of traveling to Battambang and Phnom Penh for urgent errands.

Clearly, I left just in time. This place was obviously fixing to entrap me and keep me forever. I may succumb once my service is up. Anyone wanna join me...?