Sihanoukville- A serious clash of cultures.

Sihanoukville, "Sin City" of Cambodia lured us with its promise of beaches and bars. It has faced rapid development over the past number of years as a resort town in the chaotic fashion that marks such development around South East Asia. The result is a lot of cheap backpacker accommodations and ramshackle bars in town, with a riot of palm thatched beachfront restaurants. The older and original backpacker neighbourhood is now overrun with girlie bars, while the beachfront road is becoming a row of massive resort hotels. We managed to find ourselves a wonderful spot at the Reef Resort, which shamelessly rips off the Rolls Royce logo for its own in inimitable Cambodian style. A small hotel with a pool and great restaurant right on the road to the beach, it was an oasis of cool that we badly needed in what was becoming an increasingly hotter climate.

High fashion on the high seas. Most boatmen will wear whatever will keep the sun off their head, even if it looks like something your grandmother would wear to do gardening.

View of the beach on the island of Kota Kiev, a short boat ride from Sihanoukville.

Enjoying the hooch at the  Syn absinthe distillery on Kota Kiev.The distillery is run by a wacky transplanted Californian, and the absinthe is very good. The tasting room/bar is elevated on stilts over the distillery itself.

A fine example of sak yant tattooing on the back of an Irishman we met at the absinthe distillery.

The Irishman and his wife had matching foot tattoos as well. Be cautious when drinking absinthe - the rumours are true!

"Wish you were here" - our cheeky sentiment to friends and neighbours all over the world.

View from the sea of one of the resorts located at the south end of Sihanoukville's main beach. It used to be quite beautiful until the McMansion moved in.

View from the front door of our room at the Reef Resort. The pool was a lifesaver in the Cambodian heat, and we actually never spent any time on the beach except to eat dinner!

The oppressive heat, combined with the jaded attitude of the locals toward tourists and a history of French civil law, caused one of the more memorable events of our trip to date. We had picked up some groceries from a local mini-mart for the construction of our own breakfast in the room, including small tubs of yogurt. Upon our opening the yogurt on the first morning we discovered that it was slightly "off". Having purchased six of the packages, we returned to the mini-mart that night to effect an exchange. This was where we encountered the aforementioned attitude. The young lady running the store, when asked if we could exchange the bad yogurt for another product, informed us that if we had purchased bad product that it was our responsibility to check it before leaving the store. We pointed out that it seemed unreasonable to expect that we would open every container of yogurt and examine it before leaving the store. At our request, the young lady even called the store's owner, but it was obvious from the loud conversation in Khmer, both sides of which were equally audible, that we were likely only going to be provided with alternate locations, other than the store, where we could place our yogurt.

With the support of the store owner, the young lady's intransigence was further cemented. The more that Liz demanded some sort of satisfaction, the louder the young lady's responses became and the more squarely she placed the responsibility for the situation on our shoulders. It finally came to a head when the young lady told us that we were bad customers and would no longer be welcome in their establishment.

Liz, the mother of our children and the competent, thoughtful and confident person that we all know and love, snapped. Granted, there had likely been a buildup of frustration through our time in Vietnam, beginning with the scam in Ha Long Bay and continuing thereafter where business, even in the tourism trade, is conducted with the "hard face" and the customer is told whatever it seems will part them from their money regardless of what will actually be delivered. To be told that what is considered to be bad service in our culture was actually our fault was the straw that broke Liz' back. All the pent-up frustration erupted when Liz "returned" the yogurt to the staff at the store. While she recalls the action as being a gentle pushing of the yogurt tubs across the counter, Remy recalls it as being a slightly more powerful shove that caused the one open tub to splash across the front of the young lady with whom we had been dealing. Remy and the staff were caught momentarily in flabbergasted disbelief, during which Liz managed to exit the store stage right. Remy recovered and began a dignified exit of the store, during which the staff members responded by picking up all the yogurt containers and throwing them across the shop in his direction.

While their aim was generally inaccurate, they managed to score one direct hit on Remy, covering the left side  of his black tank top in yogurt. The remaining projectiles exploded against racks of trinkets and the glass walls and door of the shop. As Remy walked down the street, he saw Liz ducking between parked vehicles to effect her escape back to the hotel, while behind him were shouted entreaties to return to the shop to await the arrival of the police. Remy, rightfully angry with everyone else involved, continued to walk in order to gather his composure, followed the whole time by a "tail" from the shop who was constantly in cell phone contact with someone. Finally, after calming down, Remy returned to the shop to deal with the situation.

By that time, the shop owner had appeared and began to berate Remy for how badly his staff had been treated. A policeman arrived, still buttoning up his uniform tunic and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, and to his credit he listened to both sides of the story, although how much of the English version he understood is open to debate. It transpired that the shop management wanted an apology from Liz and for her to clean up the mess. Remy fetched Liz from the hotel while being followed by the police and two or three guys from the shop. The manager of our hotel could feel the tension in the air and tried to intervene and offer her help to us if we needed. We assured her we had it under control and off we went to offer an apology only so we could make the situation go away. When we arrived it quickly became apparent that the owner was looking for more than just an "I'm sorry". He wanted Liz to clean up the entire mess including the splashes all over the postcard rack, the glass walls and the chocolate bars despite the fact that she and Remy were already out of or leaving the store before the yogurt storm erupted.

The volume level began to rise again, more people gathered around outside and accusations began to be made about the unreasonable nature of "we people" who came to their country and abused their hard-working staff. Remy was accused, by virtue of his size, of having intimidated the poor young lady, but was able to shut down that line of argument by pointing out that he was the only one present who had obviously been struck by anything. When it became apparent that no satisfactory resolution would be reached, Remy appealed to the owner's mercantile (mercenary?) sense and it was agreed that $20 cash would recompense the business for clean up and general upset. As Liz was not involved in this particular negotiation beyond having to respond to Remy's glare and discontinue argument, her self-respect was left intact. We voted with our feet and never returned to the shop, although it is unlikely that we would have been welcome to enter anyway.

The scene of the Great Yogurt Caper. The mini-mart is in the ground floor business on the corner, which as you can see is completely enclosed in glass. The yogurt had all been cleaned from the windows before this photo was taken. If you look closely you will see container that hit Remy still lying in the street in front of the red car. 

Enjoying the sunset from a hotel patio on Signal Hill. For 75 cents, you could enjoy a nice cold mug of draft beer and play pool for free on a pitted table. They made us a really good curry as well for a couple of bucks.

Remy having his ears "threaded". As an aging male, he definitely got his money's worth. The purveyors of this service are not shy about publicly identifying one'e physical flaws and then offering to remedy them for a reasonable sum. It is disarmingly candid.

While waiting for lunch at one of our favourite waterfront eateries, Liz enjoys a $2 pedicure from the same woman that thread Remy's ears. She is multitalented.

One of the innovative drinking establishments run by a young Ukrainian couple on the beach road in Sihanoukville.  A delicious way to do shooters!

We celebrated Easter morning in Sihanoukville with a treasure hunt for Bowen. Here he retrieves one of the clues from the bottom of the pool - we made hime work for it first thing in the morning!

Exhausted and wet after finally finding his trove of Easter goodies, Bowen thanks his mom and gives her a big Easter hug.

Slightly out of order, this was where the treasure hunt began.

The sad fact of beach life in Cambodia - beautiful surroundings with a line of plastic waste at the high tide line. They blame it all on the Thais (a historical tradition), claiming that the garbage floats east across the Bay of Thailand. And maybe it is true, as Cambodians seem to favour throwing all their garbage into the nearest river. At any rate, there is no apparent motivation to clean up or manage any of it at present, although that should change with more influence from the West.

The prototypical Cambodian tuk tuk. There are carriage works that still produce the trailers which pivot on the pillion seat of 100cc motorbikes. The drivers install primitive radiator systems (note the plastic jug behind and to the left of the driver) which drip water over the cylinder of the engine to help cool it under the increased load of pulling the trailer and however many people can squeeze into it.

Bowen takes the Nestea plunge! As you can see, there is no baby fat left on this boy, who has grown considerably over the course of the trip.

Work, work, work. We extended our stay in Sihanoukville because a) we had to catch up on work, school and blog writing, and b) it was really hard to tear ourselves away from the pool. 

Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. Another view of the Syn Distillery on Kota Kiev, this is where the magic happens. I am speaking, of course, of the space behind Liz. 

Another Cambodian innovation - sign pollution! They have not yet learned that sometimes, less is more.

Having dinner on the beach. It is impossible to enjoy a quiet meal, as one is constantly assailed by beach urchins selling bracelets and trinkets or, as in this case, fireworks. They kids are generally quite entertaining, but it is nerve-wracking to have  drunken farangs purchasing enormous Roman candles, planting them in the sand and firing them off in all directions. It is a wonder there are not more accidents. The barbecued seafood is worth the risk, however.

We came to be recognized by the hawkers on the beach, who quickly memorized what our food orders were from night to night. It is strangely welcoming, and typical of the friendliness of Cambodians in general.

The mysterious mad science of absinthe distillation. As you can see, we were quite taken with the whole thing. Maybe a possibility for retirement hobby/pension augmentation?

Remy making a bold, if haphazard, fashion statement on the incredible beach on Kota Kiev Island. It was possible to spend the night in a creaky, stuffy, bamboo bungalow but we opted for the day trip and return to our luxurious digs in Sihanoukville. We've had enough of roughing it.

Some of the cool branding which converts what is essentially moonshine to a fine liqueur.

Bowen displaying what, for him, elevates just another island to a tropical paradise.

In the end, Sihanoukville was for us what is essential in any long-term travel: a mid-term break to recharge and recalibrate. Liz was able to vent a lot of pent-up frustrations, Bowen was able to sleep in a lot and cool off in the pool, and Remy got his hair cut. The town itself is not particularly pretty or compelling and we jumped off the tourism bandwagon, just hanging out, eating and catching up without seeing a bunch of sights beyond a single day snorkeling trip. We have fond memories of the place, however, based on the down time that we got to spend together and the energy we regained to jump back into some hard core tourism through the rest of Cambodia. Next stop - Phnom Penh!

~ Remy