Come as You Are

The second leg of my world travels started with another visit to the beach/port town of Sihanoukville in Cambodia. It was my second time there, but this time around was much more eventful and I got to know the city a lot better. I was only there for a few days the last time around and those days were spent in a 4 block radius between the beach, the parties and my hotel. The two greatest contributors to exploring the city properly were renting a moto and the list of sights to see/things to do that was provided to me by Cambodia’s best tour guide. Having the moto gave me the flexibility to finally leave the area around my hotel without relying on the tuk tuk drivers. For the cost of $4/day and about $1.50/day in fuel I had ultimate freedom. When was the last time $5.50 a day bought you freedom?

Lonely Planet and the other guide books seem to concentrate the backpacking world on certain hotels, restaurants and attractions but many of the best times I’ve had so far have come on the advice of locals. The beach parties I experienced the first time around were dominated by travelers and were quite different from my first time at a bar for locals. It was a much friendlier atmosphere than any nightclubs back home. Everyone dances together and are more interested in having fun rather than showing off their fancy clothes and hitting on the opposite sex. At home its common to see a group of girls dancing around their purses but rare to see a group of guys dancing on their own (even more so dancing around a pile of wallets). At LV (the name of the club) there were just as many groups of guys dancing together as girls, as well as mixed groups. The music and the dance moves at the beginning of the night were not unlike what I’m used to, but then things changed…In the middle of the evening the DJs stopped , people cleared the dance floor and several singers performed Cambodian pop songs. It was interesting to see this at a night club, but Ill have to be honest and admit that I do not care for the Khmer tunes. All the popular songs are slow and quite depressing. The music videos seem to all feature people breaking up or dying. I’m not sure why this is, but there seems to be an opportunity for a happy and uplifting band to come in and brighten up MTV Cambodia. After the session of glorified karaoke came my favorite portion of the night. It was a modern version of traditional Cambodian dancing. Everyone on the dance floor moves together in a slow clockwise direction and the majority of the dance moves are done only using your hands and arms. It kind of reminded me of my Mom’s attempt to dance in the car during our family vacations on long drives. The locals were happy to see us foreigners trying out their moves and they were more than happy to give us some tips.