Still not sure, but it's sweet

I still haven't got much of a grasp on Cambodia, slowly pieces are coming together to make a very interesting picture. This last week I have spent at a soon to be developed beach that will have mega resorts and 10 times the hawkers it now enjoys. At this point it is bar/restaurant/BBQ after another after another with little variation. It is only somewhat garbage strewn and the water is still swim -able. Give it seven to ten years and it will look nothing like it does now, and there is already construction everywhere. There is however much work that needs to be done for this beach to not become an immediate dump in the same amount of years. But it certainly has the potential. So that has been my scene for a while. With 75 cent beers, a good book (the story of edgar sawtelle-I recommend it), and a ton of hot sun, its more than easy to let the days melt away. And they have. Im surprised that I have already been gone for nearly a month and yet it seems like it might as well have been three already with this slower than average pace. 

Recently Samantha (the girl I'm traveling with) and I moved to this rather nice bungalow atop a rock bluff overlooking the ocean. Its very nice. Away from the torch of the town but still a quick moto ride away, which we have rented but I realize insurance doesn't cover drivers.

So let me speak about the craziness here. I though that driving in Bangkok was mad. Where people are probably paying attention to lights, maybe leaning over the yellow line to move around traffic or pass other vehicles, and where usually they stay in the direction of the respective lane. Well that just doesn't exist in Cambodia. Thank god we rented a moto in a small town and not Phnom Penh were the traffic laws are, well... I don't think there are any. People drive on the wrong side of the road on the opposite side of the vehicles going the correct direction. Traffic lights might as well not have colors, certainly not the colors that signify go and stop. Its a hodgepodge of vehicles and directions, but they all get where they are going, but its fucking nuts. 

The people, they too are crazy. Well the foreigners who have remained here for a while, or for too long I might say. They are. Its not the locals that I am writing of, genuinely nice, even the hawkers you constantly refuse at the beach. Sometimes though those kids will stick quite a quip to you. This one guy from Germany who has purchased a hostel named the Cool Banana speaks 10 miles a minute, smokes dope all the time and runs his business quite poorly, from a money making perspective. He is really exaggerated and speaks in quite a hilarious accent because his english is so rushed. Real friendly, but kinda out of his mind with ideas, ridiculous ones at that. He's got this puppy that is infatuated with bitting everything. I was there hanging out, of course, and he comes in and sits down and right away the puppy bites him. He responds "oww you bastard." I don't know why I'm writing this because you had to be there to laugh, but think of it in the funniest German accent you can imagine. Quite hilarious, he then proceeds to fling the pup away from him. Right funny.  Oww you bastard (in german accent), classic... He is really just nuts. His business won't be lucrative the way he is running it and I think he just likes to party all the time. But I think that can be life in Cambodia. Apparently you can only rent the land here from local owners. So it is possible at any time for the land, and the business on it to be pulled from you. And this is not the place to disagree with anyone over something like that. I guess everyone is connected. And not to the people you or I want to know. 

There are sure to be more accounts of people like this and I will relate them to you the best I can. I saw some really interesting things on the beach yesterday. There were periods of time when these school of smaller white fish would kind of porpoise through the water. What looked like little swells breaking on the waves, which aren't really existent here, were actually hundreds of these fish doing it over and over again in great long line. That was cool to see yet no idea why it was occurring. Maybe feeding time? Also in the night time we were walking along the beach and all of these bio-luminesces become visible. They are everywhere; in the surf, on the beach, in the sand. You just walk along and there is a glowing creature in every step of the trail made. And more washing onto the sand every second. It's really cool to see. The best glow in the dark stuff in the world of the beach. I think they might be phytoplankton, but I can't be sure. 

Anyway its all real nice...