August 5, 2019 to August 7, 2019
Finishing Off Cambodia at Arcadia Park
It was a grand entrance. The night timing worked out in my favor because the reception girl from the US had been day drinking for many hours prior. She was pretty sloshed to say the least. Apparently there was some sort of special going away party for a guest. Typically, you are supposed to surrender your passport at reception and then pick it up after you've paid your bar tab. But thanks to the inebriated state of the person checking me in, I was exempt as she had completely forgotten about that rule. I held onto my passport and could have run up a huge tab and ran away if I wanted, but I would never do that.
It turns out that Ashley is doing this work as a side job. If I had the financial freedom, you bet your ass I would be doing this kind of thing as well. After settling in I headed straight for the bar and began running up a massive tab while the socializing began in earnest as well as the beer pong and buying people shots of Jagerbombs.
It didn't take long until all of talked bout Sihanoukville. The opinions were unanimous. It was the exact same as what I had heard about earlier from Angela and my friend James. Everyone here referred to it by a new nickname: Shitville. One guy was so desperate to get out of there he even hired a tuktuk from there all the way to this waterpark, about 100km away. Another guy told me the 4 hour bus ride turned into 12 hours and he almost missed the last ferry to the islands. Many tourists will bypass Sihanoukville now and go straight to the islands but the knock-off effect of all the Chinese influence is to deter tourists from getting on the buses to begin with.
Hearing all this was just very sad, because it didn't used to be Shitville. It was once upon a time an awesome oasis just like this one. It began to make me realize just how extremely fortunate I was to have toured most of the good spots in SE Asia around the early to mid 2000s before the Chinese influence took over. It also means the need to move on and find other places to tour and rack up more insanely awesome memories.
But after getting my background out of the way where I live and work, people asked me why I'm still working there. I told them honestly I don't even know. They said, predictably "What'll you do next?" and I said "Save up cash then travel and figure it out."
[Update November 2022: That would be the rational decision. Now with enough money saved to last a year or longer, you would think I'm finally going to do that]
The next day I had a decent breakfast then went exploring to find somewhere to use the internet. A lightning storm had knocked it out last night and it felt great to enjoy this rustic atmosphere and have fun drunken conversation without smartphones. But the internet would still be necessary if I was to keep in touch with friends elsewhere and also my girlfriend from China who was going to be flying into Phuket shortly and I'd meet her there. It would be nice for her to know I was still alive and not kidnapped by the mafia.
So I got on the bike in the mud and rain conditions which were worsening and found another guesthouse down the road about 3km and used their WiFi.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
That errand done it was back to the backpacker hostel for some more daydrinking. For some reason they all remembered me and thought I was a legend or something when I walked in. Well I'm not a legend but it was fun and nice to have that kind of a reputation anyway.
We did card games and various other drinking games such as beer pong, and before long it was time to try out the water park activities. They have the famous slide which shoots you up like a torpedo and you go flying off into the water. Scary as shit. I was egged on to try it and all my friends were now watching and said we'll make a video. Great, just great.
The slide was indeed a torpedo launcher and I messed it up to land in the water back first. But it sure was hella fun. Later we gravitated to the bob launcher. This is a large plastic inflatable mat that one person sits at the far end and then two guys jump arm in arm on the other end. The launcher gets catapulted off and flies into the water just like the slide. I volunteered to be the launcher first and it was crazy, you feel the "ground" just disappears as you fly off like a rocket. The jumping part is a lot tamer in comparison.
Later we had to do an ATM run. They hired a tuktuk for about 5 of us to go into town and get cash and now properly inebriated I could still forsee a potential disaster on my hands if I wasn't careful. The best I could do was get out the money belt and carry that with me at all times and then put any other valuables buried deep within my bag and cover it with clothes to leave it in the storage room with reception.
The ATM run went flawlessly and then the entire group checked out. They were getting a tuktuk to another hostel. We made sure to add each other on Facebook and all hugged each other goodbye.
It would soon be my turn to leave as I had hired a private driver. For only $35 he could pick me up direct from the hostel all the way to a guesthouse across from Phnom Penh airport. This was quite the way to go as the alternative would have been searching for bus stations in town and probably paying $10 or more with the bike fees anyway. But with the driver I was at the airport in no time. A guesthouse was easily found across from the terminal which was great since I had an early flight the next day to Phuket.
Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 1,838 km (1,141 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 3 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |