After some struggles to survive in Siem Reap, and an overnight bus trip (accommodations for small people only), we made our arrival to the beach town of Sihanoukville. Even at seven o'clock in the morning, the tuk-tuk hounds are ready and willing to sell four weary, sweaty and sticky travelers an overpriced, 5 mph ride to our secluded end of town. Alas! The beach that we had all been waiting for. We send out our laundry, put on some suits, pour up some beach cocktails and make the 50 foot journey from our bungalow to the waters of The Gulf of Thailand. The rest of the day is history.
The next day we had arranged an island hopping day trip with the folks at our place. Wil, our host, had set us up with a couple of young local dudes with their own boat, and got just the four of us out on the water. The same morning, the place next door was loading two longtail boats with 15-18 people each. They ran us out to a spot just off of a small island and hooked us up with some snorkles and we dove in. The waters in this gulf by the way, are incredibly warm. In the deeper waters, probably around 75 degrees, and then walking out of the surf, the water on your ankles is almost too hot to stand in. Michelle stayed on board minding the beer cooler while Katie, Eric and I swam around a bit, checking out the schools of fish, sea urchin, coral and the likes. I tried to get Katie to get a good underwater picture pose for me, and not realizing how shallow we were, she shot right down onto some coral. Skinned up her precious little toes and ruined one hell of a toe paint job! After a few itches and burns, we figured out that we were swimming in jellyfish infested waters. Not ones that we could really notice, but these dudes were like transparent 5" strips just floating by and rubbing up on us as they passed. With a few stings and some skinned toes, our snorkle experience was done.
We headed further out to an island called Ko Ta Kiev. One of a few islands that has any accommodations on it. The extent of this was a few tree houses, some hammocks and an open-air bar/restaurant/lounge. We found a spot on the beach to chill out for awhile. Wil had told us of a local guy that had an absinthe distillery on the beach and that if he was around, would be happy to show it off to us. We headed up a path into the jungle a couple hundred feet, and what we found was a little bungalow on stilts about 15' high, and an open door to a room with all sorts of cool equipment. The chemist in Eric was fascinated with it all and began admiring the condensers, and gauges and pipes. The rest of us, were just content with a peek. Dude was nowhere to be found, so we headed off to the bar for a drink and some grub. At the bar, everyone was lounging on floor mats, playing games, telling stories, maybe some just soul searching, I don't know. We had stepped into what had all the feel of an opium den on the beach. For these souls, I think the world was on pause. We attempted to have a talk with the girl behind the bar, she spoke about 5 words a minute, and I almost fell asleep by the time we got a drink menu from her. She was a nice enough girl, just in a world with everyone else, and not us. Eric was the only one that ordered the stuff (absinthe), and the girl served it up in a glass with a fire lit spoon and some sugar. I think we all were a lil sketchy on what we were getting. Oh well, we all took a sip, not my favorite. It seemed the real deal to all the other patrons, but I guess a few sips wasn't enough to get that fairy flying. We got our boat captain and headed back. We needed to get back to town and pick up our visas from the consulate if we wanted to get into Vietnam.
The next few days involved little more than some lounging, swimming, sweating, drinking, eating and Eric and Michelle's epic battle with their house rat.
Another overnight bus ride, again not my favorite thing, and we arrive into the bustling, sprawling, moto-crazy city of Saigon.
No comments:
Post a Comment