Oh, my Buddha! I discover I've been attacked numerous times by mosquitos, chiefly on my feet. But I don't react to the local mozzies, so the bites don't become inflamed, and I don't itch. But the thought of malaria and Dengue fever faintly remains in a recess of my mind.
It's raining, a lot. For a good eight hours it rains without abating. I pack my bags, sit in the bar area, and wait for my mini-bus to Sihanoukville.
The mini-bus, filled to capacity with French tourists exploring the old colony, takes me past quite stunning mountains. There's no room to read or type, so I listen.
Running home, running home
Running home, running home
Go find another lover to bring a-, to string along
For all your lies, you're still very lovable
I toured the land, so many foreign roads
I'm staying at the quiet end of probably the quietest beach in Sihanoukville (Cambodia's main beach resort) – Otres. Anja and Seb recommended the guest-house I'm staying in, and I am so glad they had room for me (they only have four bungalows and a small dorm).
The place is run by a couple (maybe a few; even at the end of my time here I couldn't quite work out the dynamics of the administration) of Slovakians. Seb was on the money when he said: “They're badarses, but super chilled.”
The place is a bar, on top of which is a room where the owners/friends/tag-alongs sleep (if they don't just fall asleep in one of the hammocks or on the floor of the bar), and four bungalows (just a bed in a grass hut overlooking the beach). The guy who owns it, Alex, says he loses money on the whole enterprise but it's his hobby, a place to chill.
There seems to be a bunch of permanent/semi-permanent people here, but they're never all here at the same time, there are always two or three sleeping somewhere or mingling in the other guest-houses.
Juraj is Slovakian, bald, well-built and healthy, and probably around 40. He serves me drinks for a whole night until I found out he doesn't own the place. "No, I just friend". I think he turned up one day and never left. In the typical Eastern European way, he's a man of few words, always economical in his speech, never says more than he really has to, but always a genuine smile on his face. He's either sitting at the bar, serving behind it, or lying in the hammock reading a book. Oh, and he has a sand buggy which he drives around. Although he told me his name is Juraj, I've heard him introduce himself to other people with another name (a common trait with these Slovakian dudes it seems).
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| Juraj. "You...pancake?" |
There's a German bloke. He just sits around, doesn't say much, plays chess when occasionally someone turns up to play. He cut his foot open on an anchor the other day, so he just stays at the bar the whole time. He has fine taste in music, most of them do. I have no idea how long he has been here, but he keeps his pain meds behind the bar if that is any indicator.
One dude suddenly just rocks up from next door (these guest-houses are all right on the beach) with headphones on, says hi to one of the Slovakians, walks straight behind the bar (the bar is open air by the way) and starts helping himself. I thought maybe he works here. Actually, he's just a Finnish guy who came to stay next door for a couple of nights, met these Slovakians, realised they were on the same wavelength, and has stayed for two weeks with no plans to leave any time soon. He's very intelligent, a real war buff, knows a lot about history, politics, and economics and knows his way around a chess-board. He speaks with a strong Finnish lilt, barely moving his lips, occasionally his bright blue eyes sparkle through the calm exterior. Pretty sure he's potential survivalist material (pretty sure most of these dudes are). He just comes and goes. A real 'piece of furniture'.
A middle aged English couple is staying in one of the rooms, they just mind their own business, chill at a table all day apart from going for walks.
Next to me a young American guy is staying. Very well educated, quite the autodidact. He had feelings something bad was going down in the US, and felt he needed to get away. He's also got survivalist tendencies and likes the odd conspiracy theory. He, like the rest, feels the pressure of the world, and, like the others, self-medicates.
An American girl turns up, dumps her bags, runs to the beach, takes a hundred photos, puts her camera back in her bum-bag (fanny-pack), runs back to the bar, and exclaims to a tranquil Juraj 'I love this place! I'm so happy! A rum and coke please'. Juraij doesn't actually run the place, so she had to wait for the owners, who had gone for a walk down the beach for a beer (the bar is often deserted), to come back so she could get into her room. "I was here two years ago, when these guys were building this place. I know them, I've met them before" she beams proudly. She waits half an hour and becomes irritated: “But I spoke to them on the phone personally'. She's totally in the wrong place. She's a songwriter, apparently.
One of the owners, or at least a manager, I think, is Martyn. I've heard him utter only about five words today. He has these inquisitive, suspicion-filled eyes. I wouldn't be surprised if he is running from something (hell, they probably all are). I find out later he can be jovial and fun and cheeky, dancing in his stool at the bar to Adele or some quite mediocre Slovakian hip-hop (the only one who's music taste I don't like). He doesn't care. That's cool.
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| Martyn |
A Slovakian girl hangs around here too. Can't work out who's girlfriend she is, if at all she is. She knows what's going on, and is the only one to talk to if you want to know actual guest-house information like booking a boat trip or bus. She's got good taste in music, she puts on Wu-tang and Ol' Dirty Bastard – love it.
Alex is the main owner. He looks like a 35-year old Eastern European Shane MacGowan. He's missing a front tooth, wears a peaked cap, and when he's not sleeping in a hammock somewhere, serving beers, or networking up and down the beach, he's sitting at his laptop cranking either Slovakian hip-hop, Brit punk, or Sepultera, always with a lit cigarette, nodding his head to the music. I think he may have had a world-champion boxing belt. He was in Thailand years ago for boxing and just stayed. He alternates between his chillout place here, and living in a hut in the middle of the jungle in North East Thailand. "This is not my main business. On paper, I am losing money here. My main business is in Thailand" and he shows me a Facebook page. 'Survival trekking' in the Thai jungle. Go figure.
"The Soviets were in my country. They came – 'hello' – they went – 'goodbye'. But we are now even more slaves in my country than before, and I don't want to be slave. So I left”, Alex says with a shrug, cigarette dangling from his lips.
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| Alex with his trekking team |
These guys seem to have said all there is to say to each other so they don't really speak too much between themselves, unless it's about business, so they just exist in the ebb and flow of beach life. They drink, smoke, sleep, walk, read, play chess, drink, smoke, play some darts, put some music on. I'm loving this place, but I haven't given up whatever they have. I haven't chosen to be lost yet, to leave, to not participate. They're very nice and they give everyone the respect they deserve (even if it's very little). I have a feeling already it's certainly worth the trip for this. The conversations are superb, intense, fun, and erudite, although sometimes verging on alarmist. I'm pondering a lot. Pondering, and ruminating. And what better place to ponder yourself, and the world, than looking out to sea.
Oh yeah, and they have three dogs (well, they're kinda communal dogs with another guest-house), called Adolf, Mossad, and Homo ("Could be homo-sapien, could be homo-sexual, up to you" says Juraj). And one cat "Juraj, what's the cat's name?" Juraj looks at me with a three second pause characteristic of no-nonsense Slovakians and says with a shrug of his shoulders as if it's a silly question – "Cat".
I go with Nick, the American next door to me, up to the top of Otres beach (there's a two-kilometre strip of empty land between the busier Otres 1 and Otres 2 where I am staying). I get my first taste of a beach party in SE Asia, but it's still pretty quiet. I meet an old Italian guy who teaches astronomy in Chile. “Too many clouds tonight. But Australia, be-autiful stars there. You see! Jupiter. She will be closer tomorrow, like that, right up against the moon.”
We go back to the Slovakians, where among the crazy people we feel more at home, more appreciated, than in a bar we were just in. At sunrise I say goodnight to the Finnish guy (I will never learn his name) and the sound of the waves won't wake me up for a while.
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| Another town, another tuk-tuk |
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| Otres beach from the bungalow. |
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