Stupid Tourist

I intend to go into the Cardamom Mountains next and live with the locals, so next updates will be less frequent

Leaving Kampot

A month into this trip, finally a guy walked up to me and called me an idiot in a language I could understand.

Good on him.

I had bought a bus ticket to Sihanoukville two days prior at a tourist information center and it turned out that they didn't confirm my seat. That meant that while I was awaiting the promised pickup at my guesthouse, my bus was somewhere on route to the coast without me. Cue this random Cambodian who saw the boss of my guesthouse explain the unfortunate situation to me. He walked up to me and said something along the lines of: 'STUUUUUUUUUPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID! YOU SO STUPIIIIIIIIIIIIID! OH MY BUDDHA, HAHA, YOU SO STUPIIIIIIIIIIIIIID!' Before I got on a motorcycle to get to a minivan that would take me to Sihanoukville, he failed to explain to me how this was all my fault, but well, details....

Turns out the minivan dropped everyone off right in front of a batch of hostels, instead of the bus stop two kilometers up the road, so apparently I should be stupid more often.

Sihanoukville

Not quite sure what that does out here

Boy, do I dislike this place.

Look, a coconut! (and a drainage pipe)

I've never been to a beach so filthy, next to a town so sleazy and expensive that I need to take a deep breath before walking out the Monkey Republic, an otherwise fine establishment in this plastic and dirt filled hole. There is not much to be said. The beaches are filthy, the resorts and restaurants ugly and everywhere, literally everywhere, is plastic. Also the amount of middle aged to senior Caucasians walking around with disturbingly young-looking  Cambodian women and the suggestive looks I've been receiving from the latter hints at a booming 'alternative' industry, so does the downright ugly lighting near bars and hotels, making it look like Las Vegas for Neanderthals. Also, a fair amount of the women here haven't always been women, although they hide it fairly well. When talking to a local named Bora, who I actually had met briefly in Kampot, I asked why everything was so full of plastic over here. She said: 'Well, people don't care. ' After I asked if it wouldn't affect tourism in the long run, she said 'Probably not, stupid tourists have come here a long time and will continue to come here long after you're gone.'

That makes two, I guess...

Next!

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