Friday Fire Dancers: Sihanoukville

Friday night, after spending the day at the beach, our group went to dinner at an italian place called Martini's. When walking along the beach there are tons of restaurants, all with bamboo chairs and beachside seating. While you eat, vendors (the children are the best!), come up to you with things to sell, like bracelets, fireworks and paper lanterns. It's exciting when people down the beach buy fireworks because then you get a show along the beach while you eat dinner. No one in our group bought fireworks, but a few friends bought paper lanterns to send off over the water.
After dinner we stopped at different bars along the beach. $1 gin and tonics anyone? We found a really great bar with live entertainment-- fire twirlers. These guys were so impressive! There were 2 head fire twirlers who were maybe 18 or 19 years old, who were training some of the younger fire twirlers. They would dump gasoline all over the sticks and then throw them around with one another. Their skills were awesome. After the show, the beach got packed. We started talking to the fire twirlers and they told us that every Friday they host a fire limbo contest that all the tourists come for. Sure enough, right in front of us, they set up limbo and lit it on fire. It's fun at the beginning because everyone can make it under, but as the stick gets lower and lower, the fire twirlers start grabbing girls and carrying them under-- this happened to me twice. The limbo finally got so low that only one of the fire twirlers could get under it-- the youngest. He was maybe 12 or 13. After he made it everyone was so excited that they held him up and started cheering. After, the bar sets up stages on the beach and spins music until 4 am. It was an awesome experience!