(On) Cloud 9 in Sihanoukville

Arrived in Sihanoukville, Cambodia's premier beach resort, which used to have miles and miles of wide white beaches. However, the rainy season has hit it particularly hard this year and much of the beach has been washed away. This has resulted in some sad redistribution of wealth, a lot more work for the beach shack owners (as they shovel sand around every night to avoid the fate of the neighbor shack that no longer has a beach) and fewer tourists than normal (still seemingly plenty-fold in my eyes, but the locals are complaining and hovering in droves around the ones that seem willing to buy any of the following: full-leg threading!, pedicures, massage, bracelet with your name on it, squid on a stick, fresh fruit, sarongs...).

So, as the lover of peace and quiet that I am, I got a moto (motorcycle taxi) to Otres beach this morning to check out what was said to be a much quieter and nicer beach, with no electricity and nice sand. A massive sigh of relief when I realised that to be the case (at least between 9-10am in the morning when I was having my breakfast there). I then moved on to change guest house... into lovely little (7 bungalow) Cloud 9, where I will be hanging out for as long as I'm here. It's chilled, a little away from the worst of the crowds and has space for a yoga mat if I really try.

I've now spent 1 week in Cambodia, have managed to learn a few phrases of Khmer, gotten soaking wet in a massive rainstorm, come to appreciate how beautiful the countryside is and the people are, seen some amazing water buffaloes (and learned that their milk has a fat content of 8%, the highest of all milk producing animals ;-) and I'm very much looking forward to spending a month at the orphanage up in Siam Reap (starting in a weeks time).

Now I'm gonna head to the bookstore and then find a spot to do some reading (I know it's a real hard life).