We're still working a full flight schedule, but we managed to squeeze out some liberty for the shop, at couple of people at a time. Yesterday, I got to go, and herded two of the shop's junior guys along. One, LCpl A, has been with the squadron almost a year, and is rather experienced. The other, LCpl G, we flew onboard when we sailed past Okinawa on the way to Bangladesh. This'll be his first liberty port. He's also a total hick, so it'll be only his second experience outside of the continental US, and he spent less than two weeks on Okinawa, so that barely counts.

Getting ashore is the first challenge, because we're not pulled up to a pier, despite their being a very nice unoccupied passenger pier with plenty of space, in an secure area. But we can't launch aircraft while pierside except in an emergency, and flying every day kind of obliviates "emergency". So we're at anchor, and people going on liberty need a ride to get to shore.

Hong Kong is plentifully supplied with harbor taxis, so the ship hired a herd of them. Cambodia does have harbor taxis as well, but they're little wooden canoes with converted motorcycle engines as a powerplant. Using those things fails the Operational Risk Management test.

We could use our Landing Craft, Utility, except that the ship has Landing Craft, Air Cushion this time, and a beachside resort town doesn't want those noise things running back and forth all day. Plus, they're fuel hogs. So, someone convinced the Cambodian Navy to use two of their landing craft as liberty shuttles. They were nice and new, having been given to the Cambodians in August 2005 by the Chinese. I hope our intel guys got a good look at them.

We puttered ashore along with a hundred others looking to escape the ship, then ran the gauntlet of tuk-tuk drivers at the pier gate. LCpl A had been on shore patrol the night before, and he convinced us to just start walking. It was lunchtime, so we stopped at the first place we saw, a Chinese restraunt. It had just opened, so we got a primo table, three feet from the beach. The waves crashing, the sea breeze blowing, sitting in the shade of a tree- it was heaven. But they served Chinese food that was of the authentic Chinese variety, as opposed to the Americanized stuff we usually encounter. I'm used to it, but it kind of freaked out my libo buddies. Tough.

After lunch we went walking down the beach, to the resort-front restraunts and pavilions. It was nice, but then LCpl A decided to buy a woven wristband from a wandering vendor, woven with the name of one of his multiple girlfriends. (One in every port, don't 'cha know.) We lost an hour sitting around while it got made, and then the fourth in our group decided he had to have one too, so his had to get woven. I was impatient, because I wanted to see the country, not sit on a beach.

Eventually we got moving again, and climbed Victory Hill, overlooking the bay. Quite nice. It was covered with tourist bungalos and little restraunts. We stopped and had a snack, because some of the guys hadn't managed to finish their Chinese lunch. While there, we had a nice chat with a random old guy, who had been in the Navy in the 1950's, aboard the USS Kearsarge (CV-33). We had a lovely conversation. I got some extra amusement from the way that my highly-homophobic libo buddies failed to notice that the guy was vacationing with his male "domestic partner".

People we getting tired of walking (not me), so we hired a tuk-tuk to take us downtown. We wandered around looking for a pub that LCpl G had heard good things about, failing to find it. I didn't mind, because I love to walk around towns and observe. Others were getting bored and tired, so we stopped in for dinner at the Holy Cow.

Ah, the Holy Cow. What a good choice we made. It's a restraunt that seems to have been created by expatriate British hippies. Excellent food, both English cuisine and Cambodian. I had a shepard's pie that was just delicious, then a decent chocolate milkshake. (On ship, there's ice cream in the officer's wardroom, but none in the enlisted mess deck.)

We were running out of time, since for unexplained reasons liberty was expiring at 2000 on ship. Walking back looking for a tuk-tuk, we stopped at a bookstore. I even found two books I wanted.

Then it was run the gauntlet of motorbikes, tuk-tuk back to the harbor, and back to the ship. I hadn't mentioned the gauntlet here. Cars are rare and expensive. Everyone rides motor scooters and small motorcycles. Hundreds of them, weaving back and forth, dodging collisions and moving with the grace of a flock of birds. It was pretty damn impressive.

Back to the ship, into the rack, up at 0430 for work. It's a life.

Posted by: Boviate at 08:27 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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