How I got to Sihanoukville

I'm partly seconded to a local Cambodian peace partner with whom I'll be spending the majority of my term here in Phnom Penh doing capacity building. Even though I wasn't working early December, I was invited to their annual week-long retreat at the beach in Sihanoukville along with another MCCer who's completely seconded. I was apprehensive. I expected strangeness, because strangeness in it's vagueness is inevitable. I didn't expect anyone to instantly adore me given my Khmer is horrendous...and the following week we did Myers-Briggs where I rediscovered I'm often misunderstood as detached (...not my fault).

And yet, I had an excellent time! I was relieved to discover my future coworkers are lovely and energetic young people. They don’t speak much English but were joy-filled, easy-going, peace-loving Cambodians who strongly self-identify as Cambodian Christians. I'm on a quest to discover what peace is in Cambodia, but I know these people care about it.

On the way down we stopped at a natural river reserve and set up to make lunch in one of the huts along the river intended for day vacationers. While some people made an abundant Khmer lunch, we wandered around on the rocks, some people went swimming in the river and others napped in hammocks. We ate lunch together, played telephone in Khmer, cleaned up and climbed back into the coaster for Sihanoukville.

We stayed at a hotel right across the road from the beach. Apparently there aren't hotels on the beach because beach rights won't allow it. Nicole and I and a few others went directly down to the beach to see the amazing sunset and then down again the following morning. It was not as dirty or commercialized as I anticipated (still not pristine!) and because it’s the Gulf of Thailand, there aren’t big waves. It’s perpetually calm and always blue.

And then we had evening meetings, and morning meetings and informal meetings, all in Khmer with someone in hushed low tones giving us the lowdown. Such is life when your language skills are close to nonexistent. Such is the position of being new.

Nicole and I left on the 2:30pm bus and got back to Phnom Penh around 6:30. We were disappointed we had to come back early for meetings…mostly because our partner has their act together...and we love sleeping in cold AC. No swimming, but I wasn't heartbroken. If anything, I was happy not to get sick eating strange seafood.

That's how I got to Sihanoukville. But I'll have to go again and decide...next time...do I want to hit the Thai beaches instead?