I sleep until the afternoon. Find something to eat. Bump into my Yankee (as the Finn calls them all) neighbour, and we decide to ride his scooter into town. We gather up the things we need from the centre, and I ask if it's okay to make a detour past Serendipity beach, the most popular beach in Sihanoukville.
We sit down on some chairs on the sand and immediately are surrounded by several beach-sellers.
“You buy bracelet sir? No? How about for your girlfriend? No girlfriend? I be your girlfriend, but first you buy bracelet. Yes?”
They're unrelenting. The only break we get is when they all suddenly hear of something more interesting two bars down from us. About 20 metres away a small crowd is already evident.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“To watch someone die.”
“What?!”
“Someone die, he drink too much.”
A crowd is gathering around a reveller who had apparently been drinking heavily all morning and had just, well, died. Unfortunately, it took someone's death to give us a respite from the beach peddlers of Serendipity. We finish our drinks and leave for Otres, a place we value even more now. To think all the people who's only impression of Sihanoukville is a bustling beach, jet-ski whines, crappy bracelets, litter, and dead tourists. I'll take bad-arse Slovakians without any hesitation.
I go for a run after sundown and when the tide is low. I run barefoot, I figure it will be good for my ankle which still occasionally gives me strife. The sky still holds some light, and my feet slap on the hard, wet sand which during the day is a shallow sand-bank. Otres is good for running because of its two-kilometre undeveloped stretch between the two ends – well, it used to be developed until something probably faintly dodgy went down and all businesses on that strip were kicked off. My body feels better now than when I ran last, in Kampot. It's harder to get in shape than it is to get back in shape.
I finish off the day with a quiet sit-down at the bar with the Slovakians. They have a subscription to National Geographic and New Scientist. Oh my, these guys are great.
 |
| Serendipity |
No comments:
Post a Comment