Sunset with fighing boats and locals playing in the water.
Lobster? Six for two dollars??
Rows and rows of bars, restaurants, chairs, umbrellas, ...
Steamed squid with noodles and me hanging in the background with a tourquoise bikini. 3. After a three hour bus ride on a limousine bus (which is a standard grayhouse style bus), we arrived in Sihounikville. Shit hit the fan with our first night. Our overpriced "boutique hotel" was actually just an overpriced guesthouse run by Americans who were expanding their business by adding a second level. We were told construction would start at mid-day...7am is not mid-day.
Our first meal out to the trendy, touristy, college-feeling town was to The Mexican, which was filled only with foreigners. Three hours after eating fried rice I began a 36 hour throw-up fest with a toilet at the supposed-boutique hotel that stopped flushing. Putrid. Gross. Wretched.
We would have left the next day, but I was in no shape to travel, so we quickly checked out of our hotel and headed to a large, Khmer run hotel ... think Days-Inn, but not. Same same, but different.
After a day and night in bed, in and out of sleep, watching old American movied from the 80's on cable and withering into a hollow, shell of a person, we finally made it to the white sand beaches and clear aqua water of the Thai Bay.
Now, my friends, the beach was a totally different creature...kind of like an ageless frat party ... in a beautiful old house that gets trashed by night. You can buy EVERYTHING on the be beach...sex, a massage, pot, cigarettes, squid, bracelets, alcohal, water, pedicure, manicure, wax, shells, wind-up toy mice, food, bathing suits, shorts, hats, towels, noodles, sun-glasses, fruit, lobster...all from women and girls carrying around their market items in flat baskets on their heads or buckets hanging from a bamboo pole on their shoulders.
It was a creature. I got a pedicure which was worth it because all the women know each other so they all sit around you and chat with each other. It is the closest way of being a part of their world...occasionally intergecting with questions that are discussed at length in Khmer and answered in short, broken English.
The water is somehow sacred and wholesome compared to the fullmoon parties. I swam in the warm water and black and white striped fish nibbled on my white flesh. I swam and swam and loved every minute of it!
Our first meal out to the trendy, touristy, college-feeling town was to The Mexican, which was filled only with foreigners. Three hours after eating fried rice I began a 36 hour throw-up fest with a toilet at the supposed-boutique hotel that stopped flushing. Putrid. Gross. Wretched.
We would have left the next day, but I was in no shape to travel, so we quickly checked out of our hotel and headed to a large, Khmer run hotel ... think Days-Inn, but not. Same same, but different.
After a day and night in bed, in and out of sleep, watching old American movied from the 80's on cable and withering into a hollow, shell of a person, we finally made it to the white sand beaches and clear aqua water of the Thai Bay.
Now, my friends, the beach was a totally different creature...kind of like an ageless frat party ... in a beautiful old house that gets trashed by night. You can buy EVERYTHING on the be beach...sex, a massage, pot, cigarettes, squid, bracelets, alcohal, water, pedicure, manicure, wax, shells, wind-up toy mice, food, bathing suits, shorts, hats, towels, noodles, sun-glasses, fruit, lobster...all from women and girls carrying around their market items in flat baskets on their heads or buckets hanging from a bamboo pole on their shoulders.
It was a creature. I got a pedicure which was worth it because all the women know each other so they all sit around you and chat with each other. It is the closest way of being a part of their world...occasionally intergecting with questions that are discussed at length in Khmer and answered in short, broken English.
The water is somehow sacred and wholesome compared to the fullmoon parties. I swam in the warm water and black and white striped fish nibbled on my white flesh. I swam and swam and loved every minute of it!
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