Sihanoukville Tuk Tuk Tour

The day before yesterday, we took a tuk tuk back to CT Medical Clinic so Anita could get her final rabies booster. Her bite is healing well but her calf is still bruised. We're glad we got rabies vaccinations before we came. Everybody always says that you'll never get bit by a rabid dog or monkey but that's not guaranteed.

 This is a fish in an aquarium in our hotel restaurant where we have breakfast every morning. It reminds us of someone at home but we're not quite sure who.
Shortly after I took this picture I went out front to negotiate a day-long tour of Sihanoukville by tuk tuk. There was only one driver out there, a guy whom we had used before but didn't really like. I waited awhile but still he was the only one and he started talking to me. So I asked him how much for the day for Anita, Mike and I (Tim would follow on his motorbike). He said $25. I knew this was outrageous so I said $12. He said $20, arguing about the price of gas. I said $15, which I knew was a reasonable price. He stayed at $20 so I shook my head and went to talk to Anita, Tim and Mike in the restaurant.
When we came back out the driver we liked was there so we asked him and got a price of $15 very quickly, which we agreed to pay. The first driver was still there and was obviously annoyed so I went over to hand him some money just to prevent ill will between the drivers. He slapped my hand away and said "F*** you". I didn't mind him cursing me but I didn't like him slapping my hand so I said it back. Then he started yelling that he would have charged $16 or $17 and cursed at me again. I told him he said $20 and I said $15 and that's where we had left it. He kept cursing me so I asked him if he wanted to do something about it but he didn't. That was how we left it.
From now on I won't even talk to any tuk tuk driver that I'm not keen on hiring. This guy seemed to have it in his head that we were hiring him and were just discussing the final price. That wasn't true. Anyway, it wasn't a nice start to the day. It gets tiresome always being accosted by tuk tuk drivers, beach vendors and beggars. They're all poor and we feel sorry for them. Many of them are very nice but the odd one is not.

 On our tour around the beaches, we came to this 5 star hotel. It was very nice but no nicer than you can get in the Caribbean.

 We stopped along the road and saw some monkeys. Fun to watch.

 Here we are posing at the Airport Disco Bar on Victory Beach. It's Russian owned and has a complete airplane plus several trucks and cars in it. Good food but very bad service. I think we got the wrong waiter.

 My pet water buffalo.

 Tim and Anita with some friends of Tim's where he rents a room by the month for $75. It's almost like a typical 2 star hotel. Mike is staying there as well. This woman is 20 and didn't go to school long because she cannot speak but she reads books on her own to try to improve her education. A very nice person.

 Like many other places around the outskirts of town, poor people live in these shacks about 100 metres from Otres Beach. It is clear that Otres Beach is scheduled for major development. These people are very likely squatting on public land and will someday be evicted with plenty of notice and these shacks will be bulldozed. The same thing would happen on public land in Canada. Only here, the day the bulldozers show up they will definitely start work whether people are still in the shacks or not. In Canada, people chain themselves to trees that they don't want removed. I wouldn't try it here.
Meanwhile, Hun Sen, the prime minister since Cambodia's liberation from the Khmer Rouge, has a mansion right across from our hotel. He was Khmer Rouge but defected to the Vietnamese liberating forces and has been elected as prime minister or the equivalent ever since. He is reputed to be extremely wealthy although he came from a peasant family and has been a politician most of his life. I wonder how that happened.

 More free range cows wandering through the back of the beach shack restaurants on Otres Beach. There are cows, dogs and garbage everywhere. The beaches are beautiful but any vacant land is not.

 Blame Canada, a bar on Otres Beach, probably owned by some expat Canadians. We were in another bar called I Don't Know. Amusing.

 Anita and Ernie relaxing on Otres Beach while Tim gets a massage.

 Same same but different. A few minutes later a full family of rooster, hens and chicks wandered through the restaurant and on to the beach.

Sunset on Otres Beach with a windsurfer playing. We may go back there for a walk down the beach today. I've already got the cell number of the tuk tuk driver we like and a price for taking us there, waiting for the day and then bringing us back. I could have got it for $6 but I offered him $10 because he is likeable and seems to have potential. Might as well help him get ahead.