sihanoukville

Sihanoukville resembles what I imagine the French Riviera or the Costa Brava might have been before cheap airfares and the European Union and mass middle-class holiday making. It’s a uninteresting little town which happens to be encircled by a series of sandy beaches which tumble into the Gulf of Thailand. It’s a resort town and there are hundreds of tiny guesthouses and beachside bars catering to local tourists and shoe-stringing internationals. It’s a pretty easy place to stop for a few days. Compared to Sydney’s, the beaches are incredibly benign – the water is warm enough to poach an egg in, there are no waves, rips, sharks, waxheads, jellyfish, or blue-bottles, and all you need to do for someone to bring you a menu is sit on a deckchair under an umbrella. I didn’t see a cocktail for more than three dollars, and the beer starts at fifty cents a glass. Sure, the martinis aren’t a patch on the Bayswater’s, but you can sip wearing your togs, and a round costs less than a bowl of olives. You lie on the beach, sipping a margarita, and locals wander past offering fresh fried seafood, tropical fruit, massages, manicures, bracelets, sarongs, photocopied books, chips, you name it, all for sale and super cheap. The seafood is amazing, accommodation is really really cheap, there are internet connections everywhere (but no phones) and the sun seems to keep shining all day. That said, I’m not devastated to have left Sihanoukville and not only because crowds and expat bars full of sleazy middle-aged men and comatose backpackers are not really my scene. I wrote a huge, windy rant on my misgivings about this place which I think I’ll leave in the recesses of my hard drive. Key words/concepts: exploitation; sex tourism; Houllebecq, J.G. Ballard; first world guilt (mine); child poverty (not mine); US$300 average yearly income v US$2 margaritas and this laptop; fascism, complicity; consumption; blindness. You get the idea?