This little piggy went to Sihonoukville

Chum reap sua from Snooky!

After finding a bar on the beach yesterday afternoon, there were a few lady's on the beach (and even a ladyboy) touting manicure's, pedicure's, sarongs, bracelets, bleached decorative coral, shells, massages and a thing called "Threading" (You may have heard of Threading before, I think it may originally have come from India, but it has found its way to Cambodia, on the beaches of Snooky. Threading is a form of hair removal, using a piece of string, formed into a loop, the string is twisted, and it then pulls hair out by the root, usually quite a few hairs at a time). So there, at the beach bar, we met Mom (one of the touts, not the ladyboy), who kindly pointed out that my legs were looking a bit shabby and she had the answer to my problem. So for $15 for both legs, I got Threaded. It is then that I learnt the words Choo (pain, or ouch!) and Tik Tik (a little), I also learnt the word for a lot, but I forgot (stupid brain only has the capacity for 2 or 3 Khmer words or sentences a day).Mom was fabulous, teaching me some more Khmer and being very chatty and friendly (I have arranged to call her when I get home so she can teach me more Khmer and I can help her with her English). She also suggested a tour company do do our Bamboo Island Tour with and she negotiated $2 off the price for us. I love Mom :)

Today we headed across to Bamboo Island on the BICAT (no, this is not a sexually confused feline), it is the Bamboo Island Catamaran (when I say catamaran, I really mean a single hulled wooden boat that looked like it should be smuggling us from Indonesia to Australia, possibly with a Children Overboard scandal involved).

There weren't any children thrown overboard today, but I wanted to throw a couple of pommy girls over, along with an American lady (who was the spitting image of Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) from Australia, goggle type glasses, stupid hat and nose stuck up in the air. I didn't have the heart to tell her that we were indeed not heading to Australia to drove 1500 head of cattle. She would also not find love in the Outback from a previously heartbroken drover who was tough on the outside but kind hearted on the inside, or a surrogate child, a half cast aboriginal child on the run from the authorities who were trying to place him in a mission. We were in fact just heading to Bamboo Island to do a spot of snorkelling and lazing around the beach.

We were picked up from Makara (our hotel in Snooky, $9, clean, about 100m from the beach - but no air con, tv or fridge - how rude of you SE Asia!) and dropped about 400m down the road. Had I have known it was this close, we would have walked. We were treated to breakfast, really strong coffee, a freshly baked bread roll and some jam, then we headed off to the boat. A very rickety old thing, and as I mentioned above, it looked more like it should be smuggling us back to Australia then taking us on a snorkelling tour. Needless to say, we were a bit apprehensive, especially when I saw the amount of water in the bottom that they were bailing out!

However, I am in it for the adventure, I have travel insurance (for my camera), memory cards can dry out and there was a handful of life jackets. The plan was to punch Lady Sarah Ashley and the pommy girls should they try and reach them in the case of an emergency. Luckily, operation "Australia", never came to fruition. We made it to the snorkelling area just fine - I was perhaps a little green around the gills. Yes, I work for a boat and yes I do get sea sick, I think this is because I am not a Pirate. The snorkelling areas was not the best choice, it was a bit choppy and the viability not good. I gave it a quick go, Andrew from Get Wet would have an absolute heart attack if he saw their safety measures. No wet suit, no instructions just, "Here's your snorkel now jump off the boat. Oh, and by the way, don't stand on the coral, there are sea urchins". After floating around in the water for a few minutes and getting smashed in the face by waves, I decided that it was enough adventure for me out there, in the ocean, with the sea urchins, and promptly hopped back to safety in the rickety boat (the boat was actually quite good and speedy considering the size of the motor, we didn't have any trouble with it at all).

At Bamboo Island, John and I frolicked in the waves, like whales (occasionally breaching and blowing water into the air) and ran into some lovely Khmer people we had met the night before. The frolicking was the best part of my day. I much preferred to frolic in water than to lurch, roll and pitch on the water. We had another quick snorkelling stop off on the way back to Sihonoukville and John tried his hand at fishing (which was really just an exercise in fish feeding, resulting in him covering the white hotel towel in squid ink and making himself smell like fish BAHAHAHAH). John is not the new Rex Hunt.

We resemble piglets at the moment though, with very pink skin and curly tails.

Tomorrow, the piglets are heading back to Phnom Penh. This little piglet will be crying (yom) all the way home.

Oink.

Shanngelina