February 12th to February 13th- Sihanoukville and pinky promises

Caught an early bus to Sihanoukville from Phnom Penh. Ben, Will and Saydi all were sick overnight so the bus journey was pretty horrid for them, Ben coming very close to having to be sick in his rucksack on the bus..
  Arrived at our hostel called Mick and Craigs, owned by an English guy, so the restaurant menu was filled with delicious western food that we'd all been craving. The beach is so nice, with beach bars all along it, letting people sit on their sunbeds or swing seats for free. Em and me set ourselves up on an amazingly comfy swing seat, ranted away about how much we loved it here while we swung back and forth in the sun listening to the waves and chill out music from the bar.. So nice. Drifted off and awoke to a Cambodian lady stroking our shins and pulling disgusted faces. We realised she was referring to our leg hair and burst into laughter. She gestured that she would remove it all for us, but with our money left at the hostel we had to say no. Next thing we knew she'd pulled out a string of cotton and in weird twisting and pulling motions started plucking out Em's leg hair. Em started shrieking and flailing her legs all over the place, while the lady tried to hold her down. So so funny. Eventually managed to convince her we had no money and thank you but no thank you, before we realised what was going on she'd wrestled our little fingers into a pinky promise that we'd let her do it tomorrow..
  Accidently caught the eye of a young boy carrying fruit on his head, who enthusiastically marched over and insisted I buy some fruit from him. Again had to try to explain we had no money, which he was very unimpressed by. He tried to force me into a pinky promise that I'd get my money and buy off him later but I wasn't falling for that trick again and sat on my hands. Eventually he settled with me telling him if I want fruit I'll be sure to find him and nobody else.
   Two 15 year old Cambodian girls came over to sell Em and me some bracelets, again we had to tell them we had no money, which they responded with 'no money, no honey! But that's fine you take bracelet off us now and pay later, we trust you, you won't run away'. Instead they made us both a free friendship bracelet and we promised to buy a bracelet off them tomorow when we had money. They sat talking with us for most of the afternoon, spoke English PERFECTLY, using typical western phrases and making sarcastic jokes with us. We were amazed, can't imagine being only 15 and being able to speak and understand another language completely fluently just from learning it at school. They asked us if they could swap our mildly tanned skin with (in our opinion) their gorgeous brown tan. They're desperate to have pale skin. Got a bit embarassing when they shouted to some other Western boys on the beach that Em and I wanted to go bang bang with them in the sea... But they were very lovely.
  Had another day on the gorgeous beach the day after, starting with beans on toast at the beach bar. The bar we were sat at was running a beach volleyball tournement that afternoon, and refusing to embarass myself by attempting to thump a ball over a net, I instead helped the bar man hand out leaflets down the beach for teams to come along. Ben, Will, Em and Lizzie formed a team and won the first match, but somehow a very drunk Scot had been nominated as the umpire and making it all up as he went along, just wrote down random teams who he thought might have won. 
  Am on a very tight budget, so decided I could only allow myself to buy the ONE bracelet from the lovely Cambodian girl we'd spent the afternoon talking to the day before, and unfortunately no money could be spent on fruit or leg plucking or massages. The girl found us again and like I promised I bought a bracelet from her. As I was handing over the money I heard someone shout my name, looked over only to my confusion to see the girl I'd promised to buy a bracelet from the day before. Looked back to the one I'd just paid, they looked identical.. In guilt and annoyance I realised I'd got confused and bought a bracelet from the wrong girl and collapsed on the bed while Em laughed and laughed. The girl I'd actually promised then came skipping over all smiley and excited for me to buy a bracelet. I could hardly refuse to buy one now, so spent the money I was saving for dinner and bought one from her too. Ahhhhhhh hilariously annoying. Ben said I was stupid and too nice, but he paid for my dinner anyway..
  After that confusion I fell back asleep in the sun.. Awoke to find ourselves surrounded by people who'd wrestled us into pinky promises the day before. Can't deal with this guilt!!!! If I could afford it I'd buy something off them all.. Pinky promise followed by guilt trip is definitely a good sales tactic.. The fruit boy got moody with me and started stabbing fruit with his knife, I apologised over and over but he stomped off and sold some to the next people along the beach instead leaving me feeling like a terrible terrible person. The weekend we were in Sihankoukville was Chinese New Year, and one of the Cambodian girls we'd got talking to came over with a load of fireworks in her bag. She started throwing bangers around, making Em and me ridiculously tense with nerves. Went quiet for a while and I thought she'd eventually stopped. Next thing I knew bangers were being thrown at my bare back and I was yelping trying to bury myself under the sun bed, screaming for her to stop with her finding it hilarious. Love it here but so much for a relaxing day at the beach...