To the Beach! Sihanoukville

A month in Phnom Penh with hardly an excursion elsewhere and I decided the game was up! After realizing that Alan would be arriving in a matter of days and that soon after our work would begin in earnest, I started eyeing a bus schedule at the visa extension office. Within a couple of hours I had run home, packed bags, shopped for snacks, collected Aiden from school and decided to head south! I’m writing this from Sihanoukville, about four hours south of Phnom Penh (or five hours if you take the wrong bus like we did; there are drawbacks to being so spontaneous) where the beach is lovely, and the food and hotels quite cheap. Aiden befriended two kids also from Phnom Penh and the trio has become inseparable. In fact, it’s been so nice, our Wednesday return date drifted into Thursday and was just extended a final time to Friday. I do have to return as Alan is coming in late Friday and I’ve promised to be at the airport for him. It is the least I can do.

We’ve tried four different hotels in four nights and I can say that four times a charm. Tranquility hotel is our favorite so far, the smell of bug spray not withstanding. Considering that in last night’s room there were so many cockroaches in the drain I could barely get to sleep, today the smell of bug spray is welcome! Ah, yes, the beach…

Sihanoukville is not the cleanest of beaches, and I was advised to pack up the kid and head next door to Sokah beach, a private beach attached to a luxury resort. I had been told that for a five spot we might buy a lounge chair, and with lunch the pool would be open. Much to our disappointment the five spot has since increased to $10 A HEAD for the use of their private beach, and lunch buys you nothing but lunch. “You can eat but if you start playing, you pay $10 each,” the somewhat embarrassed beach guard told us. I tried to imagine making Aiden and his friends sit quietly while we had lunch and not even feign any playing lest we get charged for enjoying the atmosphere too much. Then I thought better of it. No need to give elitist, corrupt landowners (and Sokha is surely corrupt; it is only a matter of time before the shanty town that shares their beach will be “relocated” for its own good) any more funds. Let them have their six guests. We’ll head back to our lovely site. Furthermore, by “cleaner” my friend must not have been referring to garbage necessarily, but to the fact that vendors and beggars are not allowed. Hmmpf, Clean indeed… At least the kids got to play on the playground before we were approached.

Needless to say it has not been all luxuriating and fresh Barracuda. No! I had been in Phnom Penh a month trying to organize meetings, raise funds, create working partnerships and arrange and test translators. But all of a sudden our most important partnership to date had to be finalized the day after I left the city, with requisite meetings, phone calls, requests for MOU and schedule creation, etc. to be completed within a matter of days! Incredible. Judith filled in at the meetings; phone calls and emails are flying; and and I'm trying to finalize the MOU this evening to set the groundwork for the flurry of collaborative activity that will begin a week after Alan arrives. Welcome to Cambodia, my friend! But the partnership looks great with a group called Youth for Peace which is doing beautiful work, specifically on a memory project with Khmer Rouge Survivors. Seems a perfect fit. Hopefully they will provide transportation and translation in return for artwork and other documentation. All this to be finalized in that MOU I'm finishing. But first a bit more BBQ Barracuda...