I am currently sitting on a bus leaving my training host family in Takeo and heading toward Phnom Penh for a few more days of training and our swear-in ceremony.
I fell asleep a little while ago for a few minutes. Even though I’ve been here over two months already, I still sometimes find myself surprised to still be here.. if that makes sense. So when I woke up and opened up my eyes, I was surprised for a second to see an old shirtless Khmer man peeing on the side of the road. Then it all quickly came back to me of course, but those moments always make me laugh.
Today I want to tell you about Kampuchea Adventure! (Kampuchea is how you say Cambodia in Khmer). We were given like a day and a half vacation from training to go to one of two places: either the city of Kampot or the beach at Kep. I decided to go to Kep. Then, to take it one step further, we decided to book a guest house on Rabbit Island, which is an island off the Kep shore.
We left Takeo province at 5AM and got to Kep in time for breakfast. We went to a ritzy hotel/restaurant for breakfast called the Viranda. We were a little hesitant because it was a whole 6 bucks for breakfast, but it was SO worth it. They had bread and butter and bacon and omelettes (without cheese unfortunately, but still omelettes!), pizza, mango juice, potatoes, pasta, etc! We stuffed our faces. There were people clearly vacationing there and I enjoyed watching them watch us with confusion as we savagely devoured the food like we hadn’t eaten in days.
And guess what? That 6 dollars also included access to their SWIMMING POOL! So we stayed another hour or so to use the pool, even though it was raining and it was actually kind of chilly.
Then we went back to the shore to find some boats to take us over to Rabbit Island. We found these little wooden boats to take us over, 6 people to a boat. I got in a boat and looked around. Oh good, our boat was equipped with 12 bottles of chili sauce and a bag of fish heads! However.. every other boat had life jackets… OH WELL! Haha. No worries, we made it across alive.
The water was actually really rough in the middle between the shore and the island. It was still raining, and the waves were crazy. Capsizing was definitely a possibility haha. We did get SOAKED from the waves splashing into the boat.
And that’s when the game of Survivor started. Just like on the TV show, many of the Americans were wearing some nice Western clothing, not completely understanding what they are in for. We took boats to a remote island. We got to the island and saw… nothing. Jungle. Mud.
The boat drivers pointed to a “path”. I say “path” because it was more like a mud stream than a path. So we started making our way, slushing through the mud. One girl’s flip flop became a prisoner of the mud when she stepped in and sunk down almost to her knee. Many people slipped and fell. I beefed it once. It was a good fall. It was gross mud too. The kind of mud you would find like those parasites that get under your skin, and then you find days later eating a path through your foot or your leg… :-P
Anyways, we finally got to an open area, and all in a line are these tiny grass shacks. It took me a second to realize that this was the guest house we reserved and the bungalows were our rooms. So I laughed for a good long time, and then embraced it.
First things first, we went swimming of course, which was a lot of fun. It was still raining and chilly out, but the water wasn’t any colder than the air, so it was comfortable to be in the water. I spent a lot of that day either in the water or sitting in a hammock reading a book. It was magical.
As the sun was going down we built a fire. Actually, that’s a lie. The Americans built a tiny flame. Then a Khmer man built us a fire haha. We went swimming again at night, because we heard rumors about bioluminescence (I am so proud of myself for spelling this word right on the first try). If you go out into the water and you wave your hands around in the water, the plankton that you disturb glow like glitter. It was very cool.
Then I went back to my bungalow to get to bed, and that’s when things got really silly. I started to set up the mosquito and realized that there were just holes everywhere in the mosquito net. Some were just tiny rips, but there were 2 or 3 holes the size of basketballs. Fantastic, not only will we be sleeping with mosquitoes, but we’ll also be sleeping with rats and snakes and probably chickens, considering my history with crazy Cambodian chickens. Also, everything was wet. Not just a little damp, but pretty wet. I guess that is to be expected, considering we were just a few meters away from the water, but it should be noted nonetheless. Then as I looked at the sheet I was supposed to sleep on, I saw the telltale sign of bedbugs- spots of blood on the sheet. My roommate for the night got in bed at this point, and she realized that when she laid down on our bed, her feet stuck straight out of one of the basketball size holes. So after giggling like we were at a middle school sleepover, we decided we had to do something.
We lowered the mosquito net, which actually helped us cover most of the big holes because we could stuff more of it under the bed. We then decided to sleep on top of the blanket they gave us. It was a little dryer than the sheet, and it also made us feel better about the bed bugs, even though realistically it wouldn’t help at all. I used my sarong as a blanket. And despite all of that, I slept pretty well, listening to the waves in the Gulf of Thailand lapping against the shore. How cool is that?
We all put on our last dry clothes the next morning, trekked back through the mud, and got on the boats. The boats were a little less exciting this time around, because I don’t know about everyone else, but I did not want to be wet anymore. But alas, I got soaked. We went back to the Viranda hotel for a second shot at breakfast. Then we had a few hours to kill by the pool before the van came to pick us up and bring us back home. I didn’t go in because, as I said, I did not want to be wet. So I read beside the pool and took a catnap.
Overall it was a great trip. It was certainly an experience. I wouldn’t say it was the best day here or anything, mostly because I still feel like I don’t always fit in perfectly well with these people. I dunno. Maybe I’m annoying sometimes. Who knows? But I enjoy their company. They make me laugh. And I also enjoyed my alone time. I’m very glad I went with this group, and I’d say we certainly have stories to share.
I dont have pictures from Kampuchea adventure, because as I said my family dropped it in the Som Law, but I have these to share. The first two pics are of my moms outdoor kitchen. Then it is a picture of my and my younger. The other two pictures are from a few weeks back when we trekked up a mountain in Kirivong. I have more awesome pictures from that trip that I will have to post next time.
have a good day.
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