Otres Redux

She’s the ‘Squid Lady’, or Mūc Srey if you’re not into the whole ‘English’-thing. So that’s what you call her.

A slight wave in her direction and her eagle eyes, hidden beneath a large sunhat, will have you spotted, ready to cook up fresh lime and pepper squid from the white-hot grill slung across her able shoulders.

The Squid Lady patrols the long sandy stretches of Otres Beach, a once quiet hideaway on the coast of Cambodia, now seeing a dramatic rebirth as a backpackers Mecca.

This sleepy stretch of sand and palms, about ten minutes from downtown Sihanoukville, was only four years ago the ends of civilization.

Running water was spotty and brown, power non-existent, yet a brave few foreigers and locals staked their meager claims in the shifting sands, building amazing homes and businesses and schools from what amounted to driftwood.

If you build it they will come, and come they did. Despite one government intervention, in which the entire beach was razed by bulldozers guarded by men with guns, the area has been in the boom times ever since.

A flurry of lost-boy style bungalows and bamboo bars began to spring up attracting artists, and builders inspired by Cambodias lax construction regulations, to craft ever and ever more interesting and beautiful accomdations.

Hearing of the inexpensive lifestyle, community atmosphere, and the undeniable beauty of the beach itself, people began to trickle in slowly from the banana-pancake trail.

They say a whisper burns as fast as a forrest fire, and soon the trickle was a tidal wave, packing the beach to the it’s limit during the peak season of Dec-Feb. These once sleepy fishing areas now explode into colorful life for a few bright months of the year – raving mad Westerners sharing the sand with Khmer locals before both retreat away seeking shelter from the monsoons (Aug-Nov).

Any visitor getting their feet wet along the shore, taking in the shacks and huts strung in a ragged line, would be forgiven for thinking the whole thing looks like it could blow away in a stiff breeze, because it could.

You see, the edge of the map is always shifting, always advancing, and places like Otres are fragile, and rare. It is no longer the freak filled fringe it once was, it simply can’t afford to be.

The DIY – make a window out of Jaeger bottles and a chair from an oil drum – ethic is being slowly co-opted by upmarket hotels, where the pristine pool has a nice view of the ocean.

Money and comfort can change a place, dulling it’s edge, but making it more accessible to more people looking to live the life. That said, the freak flag still flies high above Otres.

It is raised weekly in the jungle by techno ravers at dawn, and flown proudly through a haze of acrid smoke by the dive bars, pirate bars, and gay bars of the beach.

The locals and expats are fighters, having carved out a living by sweating into the sand and they’re not done yet.

So, for the time being, it remains one of the last bastions of weird and interesting in a world seemingly preoccupied with normalcy – and the squid ain’t bad either.

‘Mūc Srey!’