island time

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Catch up time, catch up with the weather, catch up with some leisure and catch up with myself and Ida.
Catch the bus; Cambodia has ultimately been a vast series of six hour bus rides; Saigon to Phnom Penh to Siem Riep back to Phnom Penh and down to Sihanoukeville on the coast to catch some sun on the blissed out island of Koh Rong. A place where time doesn’t exist to catch up with: only your own good self.
To be on an island approximately 30 square kilometers in size is to truly be within your own parameters of what can be achieved in such a limited space and time (5 nights).
Picture this: crystal blue water sparkling under a blazing sun, sitting under a thatched terrace a scant 5 metres from the lapping sea. The only thing that separates the sea from me is the fluffy white sand that squeaks underfoot and my own delicious hesitation of cooling down. Time is measured in these steps to the water’s edge.
Noises: The constant rumble and snap of the waves, the permanent breeze singing in the palm leaves, roosters in the morning and the startling silence of the blackness of night. You can almost hear the stars.
There is no boat today, no ferry, therefore no way off this island which is only changing as nature slowly erodes it and fires gnaw at the green studded hillsides: land clearance. On this place there are no banana trees and today there is no banana boat. Isolation, but certainly not desolation.
Time goes up and down, measured by the ferocity of the sun and arrival of the said missing boat. Disconcertion; no boat, nothing but the sun, less order to a day that begins and ends in the sea. A place we are all familiar with in our murky histories. Other things connected with time: the constant sea breeze, most appreciated when it suddenly stops for an hour or so in the evening, beer and mosquito time, kept at bay with the crisp song of wind, undulating yet never ending. Time is not ending but becoming reality, time to strap a watch on! Our last day, leaving on the banana boat if it arrives. Time is of the essence now as we have a bus to catch on the mainland, a home to return to. We will leave this place but return one day to see what ravages she has done unto herself.

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Photos

the jetty
daily ferryboat to the mainland

local fishing boat
day trip around some secluded beaches