We set off in the morning, taking a bus to Phnom Penh and then changing onto another bus which arrived in Sihanoukville later that night. Another day spent sleeping on ramshackle buses. I would love to know how many hours and days I’ve spent on buses in the last two years of my travelling life, but then sometimes (as seen in my previous blogs) the journey can be an experience in itself.
Cambodian transport with free Khmer Karaoke:
20 minutes outside Shanoukville and the bus grinds to a halt. We are stuck in a 2 hour traffic jam and day turns into night. The cause of the jam? A bad traffic accident involving a tourist bus, exactly like the one we were in. Seeing these accidents and hearing about them makes me both sad and grateful it wasn’t my bus and also part of me always wonders if there was anyone I met on my travels involved. Luckily so far, to my knowledge there hasn’t.
On arrival in Shanoukville we head to the backpacker area and consulted the bible on where to stay.
We decided to that Monkey Republic was the place for us, which is probably one of the best hostels I have ever stayed in, if not the best. It’s run by 4 friends who have done their fair share of travelling and decided to take all the best bits from the hostels they’ve stayed in and lump it all together in one awesome backpacker oasis.
Monkey Republic:
Amazing + cheap hotdogs:
Shanoukville is on the coast in the south west of Cambodia, and although I’m sure there may be cultural destinations here, and I know for certain that there are some great volunteering projects such as CCPP but the main draw for backpackers is that SV has some of the best beaches in Cambodia, plus the parties to go with it. It’s like a minature koh phangan but much more chilled and one million times cheaper.
Our first night in SV I was bursting with excitement at the opportunity to have some mindless fun. My culture-ometer was up to maximum, and I needed to balance it out by having an evening of debauched stupidity. And in true Harmony style, that is exactly what happened. At about 10pm, after several Singapore slings I bumped into two lads from the Wirrel (posh Liverpool) that I’d met on a tuk-tuk in Vang Vieng previously.
Lovely Stephen:
Lovely Chris:
What happened next was this: I was taught ‘Chicken Eyes’ possibly the most ridiculous drinking game I had ever played, $1 buckets at (what we named) Granny’s Beach Bar, beach party at Dolphin and then at around 5am the infamous Utopia pool party to finish it off. I woke up the following afternoon with a banging head, my voice sounding like an 80 year old man, still wearing last nights clothes and my face painted entirely green. It had been a successful night.
Pool party mayhem:
Ring of fire ruins lives:
Most evenings in SV were passed in this manner, and most days were spent recovering on the beautiful beaches eating fresh seafood, barbecued right in front of you.
Grilling fresh squid right on the beach:
King prawn noms:
Fresh crab:
The first day Adeline and I took a stroll down to the main beach we found out that beautiful as it is, the main tourist beach overrides the beauty with annoyance. No sooner had we set foot onto the sand than we had two insistent massage/hair removal/cigarette, bracelet and trinket selling women on our tail shouting to us “misaaageee madamme? Verrrry good, verrrry cheap priiiice” After walking for 10 minutes down the beach they followed us still. We were polite, even when we sat down on loungers and they continued to ask us if we wanted a massage/hair removal by threading/bracelets/cigarettes etc. etc. half an hour afterwards, we were still polite. It was when one woman started grabbing my leg and almost forcing the cotton thread method of hair removal upon me that I lost my rag. It was practically leg rape. From then on we spent most days on Otres beach which is prettier and much more quiet, just a 10 minute tuk tuk from the centre.
sunset on the beach:
me probably drinking cocktails:
making sand temples:
another cool beach photo:
‘arty’:
Halfway through our stay in Shanoukville all four of us went to Koh Rong for a couple of days, but I’ll write an additional blog about that next time. The main thing I want to tell you about is the afore mentioned drinking game:
Chicken Eyes – the stupidest drinking game ever
The first rule of chicken eyes is, you must not talk about chicken eyes… that’s not true at all, once played everyone talks about chicken eyes because it’s so stupid, weird and brilliant. It’s a great game for all nationalities as there are literally no language barriers whatsoever (we realised that linguistic problems can occur when playing drinking games such as ‘ring of fire’ when with people for whom English is not their native tongue. Especially when booze is involved)
Everyone must sit or stand around a table, have a fair quantity of booze each and possibly a little drunk to begin with. You start the game with a song:“Chicken eyes baby… Chicken eyes boy…” whilst drumming the table with your fingers. Don’t ask me why, but thems the rules. You then place your sprawled fingers (silly glasses style) around your eyes like so:
assume the position:
The initiator of the game (or person who fudged up in the previous round) then begins the game with either a “bwark” to the left thrusting their left hand forward or a “bwark” to the right in the same method. The “bwark” then goes around the table in that direction until someone changes direction by giving a loud and proud “bwakkkkeeerrrr” with both hands like so:
When someone gets it wrong, which happens a lot, they drink.
The main thing to remember is you cannot “bwakkkeeerrr” a “bwakkkeeerrr” and you also can’t start the round on one. I’m hoping by now Chris and Stephen have ‘you can’t b-ker a b-ker’ tattooed on their butts, I’ll let you know if this is the case.
One of our last days in Shanoukville was spent at a beach bar called ‘I don’t know’ – I haven’t forgotten the name, it’s actually called ‘I don’t know’ which for some reason made me laugh hysterically upon first discovering it on the map. We thought perhaps the person producing the map couldn’t remember the name or something, but alas, it’s just another beach bar with a weird name.
the amusing map:
I don’t know:
The evening was spent in much the same manner as I’ve previously described, playing chicken eyes and generally larking about although upon arriving at Dolphin for the beach party we soon realised that at about 3am all the backpackers leave, and only the prostitutes, old men and weirdos remain. This was fine we thought, we were in a group dancing, drinking amongst ourselves. We were merrily having a great time singing along to Oasis Wonderwall in our own little world of drunken yay. Then suddenly out of nowhere we hear an explosion of liquid, and in the blink of an eye my hair and back were sodden and wet… I turned around to find a pleading prostitute reaching for my hand and apologizing over and over again…
Oh no. Oh dear god no.
The realisation hit me in the face, like being slapped around the chops with a stinking rotten salmon.
The sticky liquid that now dripped from my hair like glue, was in fact, the result of the prostitute projectile vomiting. Yep, she had puked, full force, into the back of my head. Chris and Stephen had taken some of the force of her sick on their legs, but the main element of sputum was in my hair, increasing the redness of my locks by the addition of carrot chunks.
Luckily for us, the Utopia pool party was still in full fling, so what better place to wash it off…
ewwwww…
On the bright side, at least I hadn’t been facing her when she chundered.
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