Welcome to Cambodia....

Sheim and I left the rest of the crowd in Saigon and headed to Sihanoukville in Cambodia. It's a bit of a divergence from my original plan, which was to go straight Kep in the south, but I couldn't find enough information about how reliable the border crossing was, so I decided to play it safe. Onto Kep by bus tomorrow.

We arrived in Cambodia with some trepidation, as the was setting, an incredible storm set in. The lightning was scaring some people on the bus, and many of the locals moved into the aisle to see where we were going....which worried me somewhat!

The people and the place soon changed my mind.

We met a guy called Sohan from the US as we got off the bus and we shared a tuk tuk (cheapy cheapersons) to the backpacker district, so we're knocking around with him for a few days now.

Day 1 (yesterday) we decided to go to the beach, seeing as Sihanoukville is essentially a beach resort, I don't think there's much else to do here.

As soon as you step foot onto the beach, you're overrun with a hoarde of ladies and children selling massages, pedicures, manicures, threading, bracelets, scarves, sarongs, fruit, crab, lobster, sunglasses....the list goes on.

It's pretty annoying, but I've been finding the children absolutely hilarious, and have fallen prey to may of the hawkers already. Their english is amazing, which I didn't expect! Here's some snippets of conversations I've had:

"I don't want a bracelet thank you.

Why?

I just don't want one.

You don't want one? Then buy two!"

"Why you not buy from me and you buy from her? I asked you first (lie). You're a very naughty girl, you see what happens when you don't buy from me!" more about this particular kid in a minute.

"Open your heart, open your wallet"

They're fabulous.

On the beach today I decided that I'd quite like a bracelet from the 'angry boy' as I dubbed him, with his name on it. They sit there and braid them for you on the spot. I wanted a memento of him. I'd seen him wandering past a couple of times shooting icy looks at me, so I knew he was around. I finally spotted him and beckoned for him to come over....I actually think he would have ignored me had his friend not shouted at him to come....lose a sale through pride...hell no!

He looked incredibly inconvenienced as he wandered slowly over to me, and even more so when we quibbled over price, I wanted to pay $2, he wanted $3, no remarks over being a cheapskate please, haggling is standard!! But all of a sudden he looked over his shoulder, and like a bolt of lightning, he was gone. I looked in the direction he'd glanced and saw a stern looking man holding a stick walking in our general direction. Alost all the hawkers had disappeared...the ones that remained looked mighty nervous.

We found out later that he was a policeman patrolling the beach. They don't like the hawkers harrassing the tourists, and will even go to the extent of walloping them with the stick. No wonder the kids were terrified.

Eventually angry boy came back....with protection, a tenacious little girl who had sold me some bracelets the day before, she was quite the cheeky little madam, we were in good company. I Asked him his name and he told me it was Pon, so I asked him to braid that one the bracelet. I picked my colours and he disappeared off to do the bracelet...eager not to be caught with us by the policeman.

Time passed and I wondered if he was ever coming back, then I spotted them walking down the beach towards us. Of course, the time to pay was upon me:

"Two dollars.

Three!!

Two!

Three!!

Oh bloody hell, ok then"

It was worth it for the beaming smile and hug that I got afterwards. I paid a dollar for that hug.

I also met a lovely lady doing manicures and pedicures...so I got a pedicure yesterday and a manicure today. I've never felt more girly in my life. Her name was Sun.

I hope the people in Kep are as interesting, the people are making this country for me so far :)