Cambodia: An Island Retreat Part I

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(Any who have spent the Khmer New Year in the company of a large group of Cambodians traveling to celebrate this holiday together in the Provinces will understand the droll use of the term 'retreat' in this title...).

Mr Bird was the last to rendezvous outside the home of Mr Bell at the unholy hour of 6.30am. Wearing a grin almost as bright as his shirt and a pair of chrome painted plastic 'Jackie O's', he was quite unapologetic for having kept us all waiting. A minibus had been rented for the next two days - with driver attached, petrol included - and it was quickly packed with more than twenty exuberant Khmer and an exhausted Barang who could only dream of making the trip on motorbike rather than playing a last game of sardines. Leg room had to be sacrificed to make room for baskets of food, drink, babies diapers and personal items deemed indispensible for a night on Koh Tun Sai ( Rabbit Island in the Gulf of Thailand, a half hour boat ride from the small somewhat decrepid coastal town of Kep).

The Kampot countryside was now quite familiar to me with this being my third trip to the south along the surfaced but rather rough road. Apart from the occasional overturned truck at the roadside, the scenery on either side of us consisted of flat cultivated fields, dry rice paddies and salt production ponds surrounded by coconut palms shading thatched wood homes on stilts. Further south the blue tinged forested mountains of Bokor rose up sharply to the west. Hidden amongst these hills, a wide variety of plants and animals may be seen and many visitors are drawn to a long abandoned French Colonial retreat built on a peak with magnificent views of the countryside below. Now shrouded in mist, the ruins of this once opulent hotel and casino for the elite decays under layers of lichen and moss, yet retains a romantic vestige of those bygone days.

An hour on the road and it was time to enjoy a group breakfast of noodle soup at a roadside stand, washed down with strong Khmer coffee. Back on the bus we felt quite comfortable in aircon that was actually functioning, until vomiting children were forced to sabotage it's efficacy by hanging out of open windows. I wasn't about to complain!

To my mind these frenzied group outings sounded identicle to reports of cheap British working class bus holidays to the seaside before the days of the affordable packaged holiday to Spain. Silly hats, sing alongs and non-stop drinking in high spirits....until the journey back when sleep deprived hangovers took their toll. Accepting the invitation to join this party cried out against my better judgement as my tolerance meter for things Cambodian had peaked after a month of traveling literally thousands of kilometers by bike on errands of a legal nature and one 'for pleasure' trip that almost emptied the energy reserve. But here was a chance to pass through into a deeper layer of Khmer culture and perhaps to a new level of acceptance. Despite the lessening but still considerable language barrier, I sat back and immersed myself in their highjinks, refusing to let my mind drift to the sanity and cleanliness of Raffles Le Royal Hotel, my place of preferrence for seeing the old year out at least.

After a stop in the crumbling town of Kampot, we arrived at Kep where we carefully made our way through the crowds along the narrow coast road and parked at the dock of the island ferry. Too many for a single craft, we were herded into two long narrow wood boats each with an outboad motor attached and twenty minutes later we jumped into the shallow warm sea, wading ashore with our cargo held at shoulder height.

Other than a few huts for the local inhabitants and some palm thatched structures between the many trees, it is an undeveloped Island and must be quite idyllic if visited at any time of the year other than New Year, when groups of Khmer, like ours, descend like raucous macaque monkeys to destroy any semblance of peace and order. The stunned Barang who thought they had found an isolated place to rejuvenate must have wondered what had hit in the space of three days, but the almost total disruption of island life settled back into place as quickly as it had occured, leaving unwanted piles of rubbish and rotting food in it's wake.

Spying a handwritten sign promising a guesthouse I found my accomodation for the night and pre paid my five dollars for a lockable stall in a wood and bamboo house, complete with hard wood platform 'bed' and mosquito net. After my night in the forest, this was five star. It was dry, leech free and I didn't have to wallow in DEET for the night.

Along the shoreline were a few stalls selling basic Khmer food for those who hadn't had the forsight to buy up everything in the markets between PP and Kep...as our group appeared to have done! Lavish group picnics are the high point of these trips, that and getting totally sloshed on Johnny walker and XO whisky. It is common to borrow money to afford the fresh seafoods and alcohol provided for the festivities at New Year and it is the person who suggests and arranges the group activities that is responsible for financing the plan, receiving in return what others can afford to contribute. Inviting a Barang is a smart move. It then becomes our duty to subsidize those without any intention or ability to pay their way! You will find us at the weddings of people unknown to us through any direct link and we are paraded to show how important the marrying families must be if they have connections with foreigners and we are happy to pay the entrance fee for this authentic cultural experience. Aren't we?

At lunch I ate the crab and marinated shrimp that had been sunbathing on wood stalls long before being purchased in Kampot market hours before. A few knife sharp stomach pains didn't stop me from frolicking alone in the overly warm sea for a couple of hours before taking a stoll down the beach to where the Barang had retreated. Three young British girls wre harmonizing beautifully and later that night joined our happy throng. The tables were turned. Instead of me sitting off to one side amongst my Khmer companions, they were now side lined as we four ladies kept up with the johnny walker shots but engaged in our own lively debates, in fluent english requiring the volcabulary often available only to those above a certain level of education, and with much laughter to boot. Heading to the "dance floor" later we stole the show not because we could dance but just by being white uninhibited women having a good time.

For the single males in my group, I had failed in my promise to broker Khmer-Barang introductions (they couldn't afford my commission fees) and their english was insufficient to join this new effervescent group. So they did what any Khmer male forced from center stage would do, they sulked and tried unsucessfully to get me to translate for them so they could re-enter the game because taking second place in the company of lively "over-educated" females was a cultural put down.

I loved every minute of it! Perhaps now they would realize a reason for pursuing their studies if they wanted to compete on an international stage.

I don't actually remember walking back to the room but the sea at night was very warm and the long brewing storm broke without cooling the air in the slightest. No one slept that night but somehow we we're expected to find the energy to move on to visit another place of beauty the next day.

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