Lost On A Bike: Sihanoukville

29/4/2011 – 01/05/2011

This ended up being a town of many surprises and interesting experiences for me.

These bad boys are about 1m long!

The Golden Lions of Sihanoukville

So the whole day riding to Sihanoukville my body was doing funny hot/cold flushes. I started thinking about Malaria and that silly wee bit from the night before – body not regulating heat properly, I don’t feel sick or anything tho, I should be fine. On and on it went for the day, the broken wheel disaster didn’t matter to me anymore, I just didn’t want Malaria! Called Elo for some doctors’ advice and felt re-assured that I didn’t have Malaria, good. Stopped worrying which was probably half the cause.

Malaria scare gone it was off to dinner. Happy Herbs Pizza for some good old cheesy pizza! A good feed, felt like a fat bastard afterwards and had a lightning display to watch while eating – fantastic!

The Pizza

Strolled back to my room even with some leftover for lunch tomorrow. Chillaxed and watched a movie, then slipped into watching another. It was getting pretty late so might hit the hay. Stand to do the usual bathroom stuff and not able to focus properly and feel a bit unstable walking around. Maybe I just got up too quickly. Off to bed. For the next few hours I couldn’t help myself from laughing, what the heck is going on. Thoughts started going through my mind; ‘Happy Herbs’ Pizza and an odd comment someone made sitting across from me “Do all the pizzas have herbs on them?”. I start feeling super hungry again and later in the night woke up with a bit of cotton mouth. I think those pizzas had some ‘happy herbs’ in them alright!

The Scooter... and a nice sunset

The next enjoyment of Sihanoukville was renting a scooter. NZ license should be all good, didn’t think twice about it really. Driving here is pretty ad hoc anyway. Crusing around just checking out the sights and I come across a group of police on the side of the road randomly checking vehilces. I get directed to pull over and show my licence. Well apparently a NZ licence doesn’t stack up and after a bit of talking with them I was ‘fined’ otherwise known as a bribe in Cambodia for the police. $10US then I was told I would be ‘allowed’ to drive in Cambodia. Messed up! Continued on my sightseeing being cautious to avoid another police stop. Went around the back of the town and took a nice winding road down to the outskirts of the town then the scooter starts to stutter. Putt, putt…putt…dead. Out of petrol. Apparently they don’t give up a full tank to start with and with my speedo and full gauge un-plugged (really helpful!) I had no idea. So I parked up and started walking to find a petrol stand (there are stalls randomly along the roadsides with 1 and 2 litre bottles of fuel) then a tuk tuk comes past – perfect! $3 odd later I had some petrol to get me back to the rental place. So an eventful scooter ride! $5 hire, $10 police bribe and $3 for petrol, might think twice hiring a scooter next time.