I know that this post has been forever in coming, but I have been “chillaxing” at the beach for quite some time. I have met a lot of really cool people, and have met up again with some of the people I got to know in Bangkok. This beach is a unique experience. When we first got here, it was the day before the Chinese New Year, so the place was packed. There were thousands of Cambodians on their four day weekend. Thursday and Friday were nuts, and once the weekend was over the beach cleared out, and we are now part of just a few hundred people on a 3 km beach.
We keep meaning to leave, but we have found such a good group of people that we just stay and say “tomorrow… we will leave tomorrow.” There is no compelling reason to leave… I don’t want to spend that much time in Vietnam anyway, and the best deals are here. I am living for free. Literally. I have a free room on the beach. It has a fan, power, a bathroom right down the hall, and I can hear the ocean waves while I am drifting off to sleep. They only ask that I eat a meal at the restaurant once a day. Breakfast is easy. Everyone else is staying at a place called the Frog shack down the beach, and they don’t even have to eat a meal, they just get to stay for free, but I like being a little removed from the group I am traveling with for some time alone if I want it.
There are 10 of us who have been hanging out. Seven Brits, Robyn (Canadian I met a while ago in Siam Reip), the Iceman, and Myself. We have been going on cruises, renting sail boats, chilling on the beach, going out at night, and pretty much spending every day hanging out. A really cool experience since the Brits didn’t know each other beforehand either.
Tomorrow (Really this time) the Iceman and I are jumping on a bus to Vietnam and heading up the coast. I should be in Hanoi by the 29th so that I can fly to Bangkok then on to Katmandu, Nepal to hike to Everest base camp.