Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Saturday
I woke up fairly early due to the heat and was annoyed to see my big bottle of water from the night before had a little hole in it and so had leaked all over my stuff on the floor. After hanging it all up, we went for our free breakfast fried eggs on toast - the best I've had yet as they were well seasoned and so tasty compared to what you normally get!
We chilled most of the morning and then met up with the others to sort out the boat trip. Unfortunately, Craig had been barred from the trip as he had pissed off the owner of Bongs (and also my friend Luke's friend, Jake) the night before. In fact, before I went to bed I recall him annoying Jake's wife at the bar which was when I realised it was time to call it a night and left the rest of them to it which had obviously ended badly. Jake and his wife were lovely people, she had let me use her phone to make a quick call to home as it was a Cambodian number. Anyway, Lauren and I were laughing at the guys trying to recruit other girls to come on the trip as Lauren being the only single one had made it very apparent they'd been friend-zoned and so they were calling us a part of 'the lads' who also had better banter than them. We watched them trying to get groups of other people to come and found it hilarious at their failure. So it just ended up being a small group of us (me, Lauren, Dan, Steve, Henry and Moon) and then Alex who worked for Bongs, his friend Baron, the boat owner Pat and his boat guy.
We went off on the boat to the first island where we did some snorkelling, I was a bit concerned of the sea urchins I'd been warned about (which I hadn't entirely realised were live creatures) and was being super conscious of being attacked. This, of course, became a running joke of the day. I saw some nice fish and coral and we climbed back on board to go to the next island. Alex was really informative and having lived in Koh Rong for years knew a lot about the people and lifestyle and asked us to be respectful going onto this island as they are less exposed to westerners. We were led to a hut where there was a bar and a pool table and just sat and chilled while a couple of the guys kicked a ball around with a really cute little boy who was about 4 years old. When we had our lunch which was chicken and rice, Alex came and sat in the middle of us and spoke more about the Khmer people (Khmer is now the word I understand to be correct to use). It became a very deep and interesting conversation where he told us of the life our boat driver Pat had experienced. Pat had been recruited by the Khmer Rouge and had been in situations where he'd had to kill people. Alex explained he's had long nights spent chatting to Pat who has trusted and opened up to him and the respect he has for him and the life he's had to lead to the man he is today coping back in this society. Alex also told us of another older woman he'd chatted to who had seen all her family be killed (including her own children) and how now all she wants to do is enjoy what she has left of life. He explained why the Khmer people are laid back and relaxed and don't care so much about work and just want to have communal time with their friends and family because they've not long been through that horrific experience as a country. It made much more sense to me now and I felt bad for judging their way of life previously and completely understood why for example they don't worry about punctuality! The country and still recovering from a scarey and hurtful time and it was good to understand how they appreciate what they've come through to how they wish to spend their days living. Alex also discussed a lot of other political stuff which I won't go into as things like that aren't entirely safe to discuss publicly, and we generally learnt some interesting things from him.
Afterwards, we all got back onto the boat and it stopped off for us to see the sunset on the way back as well as an attempt when the sun had gone down to swim with the Plankton (where these things are supposed to light up underwater). There was no Plankton, and I'm unsure whether it exists here but Alex said it is a bad time to try and see it as it was nearly full moon, so the moon light shines on the water and makes it barely visible. Pat had caught a load of fish so his boat man put these on a BBQ and some of us gave it a try. I don't usually like fish, but I had a bit with some chilli sauce and it was nice, Lauren on the other hand was being adventurous and ate an eye ball!
We got back to Koh Rong island and said bye to the others as Lauren and I went and showered and got ready for some dinner. After going next door for some tapas we went for a walk along the beach where I had an incident of embarrassing Lauren. Lauren had made friends with a guy from Australia, Phaon who we kept bumping into. Well Phaon was walking in front of us along the beach with two friends, and Lauren had wanted to get his attention so was talking about throwing her flip flop at his legs. In not having the courage to do so, I agreed to do it and in what normally from myself would have been a terrible shot as
I can't throw, I somehow managed to boomerang her flip flop directly into his face as he turned to look to talk to his friend on the right. People sat out at tables on the beach even gasped. He turned around in shock and none of his friends were laughing, we on the other hand were in hysterics and I pointed to Lauren and said it was her and he picked the flip flop up and threw it far into the sea. They then carried on walking and we stood in shock with what he'd just done. We felt like 15 year old school girls again giggling about why we wouldn't just have walked up and said hi.
While still laughing about what had just happened and Lauren mourning her lost Havana walking around with one shoe, we went and watched some live music performed by Ray Ray and Harold (another one of my friend from home's mates). By half 9 we were struggling to keep our eyes open so decided to go and sort our travel bags out for the morning. I think we were both in bed by 10pm...again not very comfortable and as much as I love Koh Rong, I was so hot that I was looking forward to moving onto the next place tomorrow.
xxx
- comments
Auntie Loz x