Sihanoukville

Right before leaving for my bus I saw a girl with a backpack and asked where she was heading. Sihanoukville. Different busses by 1 hour, but same destination. We rapidly chatted about both having planned to stay at this well known hostel, utopia, and exchanged contact info so I could find her when I arrived slightly later. Score.

The ride was supposed to be 8pm to 8am, on yet another sleeper bus. I decided that I'd suck it up and worry less this time, taking in whomever they put me with, valium in pocket. Ended up being a different kind of bus, with almost couch like reclined seats for beds, with absolutely no means of a divider in between (thus, still sleeping with someone for all intents and purposes). I ended up sharing my spot with a sweet israeli girl, doing her post army travel. We chatted for ages and then eventually passed out in the way-too-short seats. In the middle of the night I awoke from the ridiculous turbulence (I know that that's not the right word, but whatever the bus equivalent would be) and looked out the window to our bus rocking on a unpaved road, 10kph, only about a meter away from a rushing river. Scary as. The bus didn't feel right.

I ended up having a lucid dream the next time I fell asleep, somehow gaining control of the outside world and window scene, and at 8am I awoke. We were still moving. Shortly after we stopped, but no way was this the destination. Apparently the bus had a flat tire, which probably explains the nutty driving all night, so we all waited for aged before getting back on. At 11am we were finally in sihanoukville and I jumped on the back of a motorbike to find utopia.

Quite easily I found janie, the chick from siem reap, and she said she was off to a 'booze cruise' shortly, and that I should come. Sure. Changed to a bathing suit and I was off.

We got breakfast with two other girls she had met earlier in her travels, chloe from melbourne and emma from the uk. Janie's from toronto (like seemingly every other person I meet).

At 130 we were to board a boat for a 5 hour drunken booze cruise, seemingly the main attraction of this city. Once I got onto the boat I saw jacob! What are the chances! And as buckets were handed out filled with alcohol I ended up meeting two swedish girls as well. One of them, jennie, now fills the role of the only other 'just jennie' I've ever met. The other girl, bella, and jennie had been traveling together.

The whole boatride was a messy blur of large amounts of alcohol, lots of jumping off the boat into the sea, shots being poured into your mouth from a teakettle, and tons of dancing. They gave us a pretty gross hotdog "lunch" but overall it was super fun. A major aspect of the trip was some sort of ice game, where you had to transfer large icecubes by mouth to random people. Messy fucking trip.

When we got back a few of us decided to go out to dinner instead of passing out, to try to extend our night's plans. My recollection is limited, but eventually I went with jennie to wake up bella and head to one of the many bars on the beach. The first place we went was pretty funny and empty, but free drinks were aplenty and we all got our dance on. Then we went to the more popular spots on the beach-- jj's and the dolphin shack. We were out drinking, dancing, and wreaking havoc until about 4 am, when I caught up with jacob and chatted for ages before finally passing out back at utopia.

I woke up really late, not too hung over, and went to get food at the hostel's restaurant. I found the comrades of the night before and we caught up, whilst meeting new people and feeling ourselves way slower than the day before. It was a mission to book a plane ticket and then peel ourselves out of the utopian haven (this though is when I got a scary amount of bug bites) and go out for a bus ticket (me), pharmacy run (chloe), and dinner (all of us). I booked my trip for phnom penh and then we went to a pharmacy for chloe to deal with her scab which was beginning to turn green. The staff were awesome, professional, and cleaned up everything really well while I was busy wandering around looking at all the foreign drugs so readily available for purchase.

We decided to get indian food for dinner and invited over a sweet couple to join us as well. I ate way too much, but it was awesome. When we got back to the hostel, we noticed the power was out (the fuck man, how does this keep happening to me!). We found 3 swedish guys from our room, borrowed a torch from one of them, asked them to join us, but ended up going out before they were ready. We went for drinks to start the night. We were drinking on the beach when a khmer chick started talking to us, calling us all 'sister.' Naturally we invited her over and everytime anyone drank we all had to say cheers and knock glAsses. Twas a funny game with the locals. We had heard of a rambo party, requiring headbands, as well as a wet tee shirt contest, so the night seemed like it would be full. I couldn't find the swedish lady friends of the day before, but soon janie and I were kicking ass at beerpong, chatting with whole new groups of people. Drinks were cheap, and often free upon entry (which was also free) so it wasn't long before we were silly.

We ended up running into the swedish guys from the hostel, and I fell deep in chat with one, 20 year old isaac. He was staying sober after a recent concussion, and was in the beginning of dealing with various family problems, so, though deep into liquor thus far, decided to cut myself off for the night and try to get to know him.

I had to break for a wee bit to watch th aforementioned wet tshirt contest, which really became a topless girl dance off with extremely drunk, slutty, backpacking chicks. I couldn't believe my eyes at their nudity, but it was a fucking hilarious show.

After having lost isaac for a while I figured I should get back on the piss, but then found him again, at a table surrounded by some of the drunkest people. Obviously, the one taking the cake for extreme drunkenness though was an australian who did nothing except talk into my shoulder. By this point I was sober enough to be a competent human being, and felt like I knew an impossibly large amount of isaac's life story. I stayed up with him for a while, trying to console him (and moreso enjoying the time spent, deciding sleep was only mildly important), and at 6am we finally fell asleep.

I woke up at 830, under a new blanket (ah might as well mention that the night before I woke up under some random blanket as well, apparently dragged to my bed and then I assumed it was just given to us from the hotel, and felt terrible trying to explain it to the girl who lost it, 3 beds away (and also might as well mention the way the rooms were set up-- it was like one massive bunk bed structure (more so raised platform) with a bunch of mattresses next to eachother on each level)), because isaac said apparently he saw me shivering in my sleep, and since we were in the same dorm, twas the sweet decision he made to cover me.

I had a 10am bus to catch, but woke up so early to deal with the fact that the laundry I sent two days early was still not back, and since the only clothing I had at this point was a dress and bathing suit, I fucking needed to get it before leaving. The staff wasn't helpful initially, but I was able to convince them to let me into the drying room to find my stuff. Everything was pink, or stained, or left with white powder coating it. Awesome. And they lost my two teeshirts. After much struggle and annoyance I was able to find them, but man that was annoying.

Isaac decided to leave his friends for a few days and come with me to phnom penh. He bought a ticket right before departure and we were the only people in a shuttle bus, on our way to the bigger 'vip' bus.