"Sihanoukville" The Beach City & Where We Said Goodbye!

As classes came to end it was time for the whole group to travel to our last travel excursion; Sihanoukville.  Sihanoukville is about 4 hours away from Phnom Penh by bus and the roads are paved so its a nice ride.  Traveling this way you get to see all the fields of rice and a huge man-made Pom Tree Forest. The mountains are also quite spectacular even on a cloudy day.  As we rode down on the bus we could feel the overwhelming sense that the group was going to be split up near the end of the weekend, as Vietnam and Thailand were to go to their respective countries to begin their teacher training on site, while the Cambodia and China people were to remain in Phnom Penh for the entire 4 weeks.  Everyone wanted to stay together as goodbye's are always hard, but that is what life is a bunch of Hello's and Goodbye's.

The hotel was beautiful it had a rainforest feel to it and a very chill feel to it that I loved.  Food was good as long as they remembered to put it in the order pile.  The owners were nice most of them guys from Britain who traveled her and married Khmer woman.  The best food on the menu was of course seafood, because it's literally caught that morning.

All beaches are great in my opinion, but this is probably the best beach I have ever been to.  We were about a 5 minute walk from Victory Beach, which was the quite beach (especially since we came during the low season of tourism).  Victory beach is very quite and a great place to spend your time lounging around sipping on a banana shake (like me).  It is also good for Island Hopping as they have tours go out every day (only $15 for a 7 hour tour of 4 islands, snorkeling gear and breakfast.lunch already provided). I did end up getting sun burnt, but not too bad for being in the sun for 3 hours, diving for sand crabs and other things.

Also near the hotel  about a half a mile down is a Snake and Crocodile House, which is totally awesome (they only charge $3 and you get a beer/water with it).  I was actually worried that the condition of the animals would be horrible, but instead it reminded me of the US if not in better conditions due to the cool rainforest feel everywhere.  Some of the birds were in very good condition and even knew how to say hello or ask for a cookie.  

The coolest thing there was the open aquarium where the sea turtles live.  If you lean really close you get some great pictures, but beware of the other fish who usually are fed when someone leans over their tank like that, they are very energetic and eager for food.

Around 7pm we headed to Serendipity Beach, which is the exact opposite of Victory Beach.  This is the party beach.  The pier is lined with bar after bar after bar, most of them looking to hire Westerner's to work without a wage just a promise of free beer, free wifi, tips and a promise of a good time every night (some people actually do stay).  When it's raining it keeps the local kids inside so you're not bothered but man when it's not they attack like vultures.  One of our group members always seems to get beaten up by them, but a part of me believes he deserves it.  Some other local girls about 6-8 years old (cutest things ever!) started to braid another members hair and it became this whole production.  They seemed to like me taking pictures of them too.  The worst thing is is that these kids are on the party beach every night so they are excellent salesmen and also very good at mimicking drunk people without really understanding the meaning behind some obscene gestures.  Most of the times the kids do it to see our reactions.  When you go to a beach during the wet season expect it to rain, but beware of the wind as I did not and I paid that price.  I was just sitting minding my own business when a huge umbrella landed on me which entailed it stabbing me on the back of my shoulder where my sunburn was.  The local kids all had to see my wound and seemed genuinely worried, luckily I wasn't bleeding, but I do have a huge bump and a promise of a wicked bruise for later.

Saying goodbye to my first friend I made in the LanguageCorps was very hard, my Russian friend was off to Thailand so I got her a cute lanyard shrimp with the Cambodian colors on it and she got me a bracelet.  I miss her very much, but I know she will do great in Thailand and it gives me an excuse to visit Thailand in the future.

Tomorrow I get to visit the school I will be teaching at hopefully its awesome and I get the kids somewhere between the ages of 5 and 10.  (As a warning their are hardly any clothes in Cambodia that fit me, including shoes... It's an event explaining to store clerks that you have big feet and a wide waist... You literally just make fun of yourself the entire time but they enjoy it... Found two pairs of pants each cost $25, but no luck on shoes LOL).