Friday 6 April – Relaxed day on the beach
6.00pm: The sun starts to set in spectacular fashion, again, with just a few small clouds in the sky.
I spot a big rock on the beach where I sit alone with my beer and phone (to
take some smartphontos), to enjoy this gift of a sunset as it deserves.
It is truly beautiful, the blue
turning yellow, turning orange, turning red, turning purple; the clouds turning
yellow, turning orange and blue and red. The fishermen starting their daily
journey in the horizon, boat after boat, men after men. One, two, three... twenty, thirty, forty.
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| The post-sunset rays |
There is a bit of a breeze and I
really am taking this moment all in, feeling relaxed, calmed, peaceful... and
thankful.
THANK YOU WORLD.
The sun seems to be just a few
metres above the sea in the horizon, with a light blue sky above it and a yellow and orange belly underneath. I
focus on its reflection on the sand just as the waves go back into sea.
I realise at this moment I used to
take sunsets for granted when I was growing up back home, in Tenerife (Canary
Islands, Spain).
Each sunset has its own story, its
own life, its own part of drama, love, passion... and its inevitable same end,
day after day. And for me, they are at their best when we see them over the sea.
David, Pabs and Christa, who we
have met today and is Italian-Canadian, join me on the rock and we cannot take
enough pictures of the sun. We are all loving this moment very much.
Once the sun has gone, the show
continues as we can clearly see huge, wide and long rays of light in the sky, now with very few clouds. A visual
combination of clouds and islands breaks the sky and the effect is stunning.
Mother Nature, you are great.
9.00pm: Christa joins us for dinner by the Serendipity beach. Some young
street vendor girls come round to chat to her. They know her from a few
days now and act like they are best friends:
Girl, looks under 10: I need your
help.
Christa: what’s happened?
Girl: I need you to write “I don’t like you anymore”, she asks, a
little upset.
Christa: What? Why do you need me
to write that?, responds surprised.
Girl: It is my boyfriend... I
don’t like him anymore, responds the girl really disappointed.
Christa: What boyfriend? You are
too young to have a boyfriend!
Girl: He is not good any more. And...
where is your friend?.
Christa: My friend?? You mean my
cousin?? You like him, didn’t you!
The girl smiles first and laughs
later.
Christa: He is having dinner
somewhere else tonight.
Girl: really?? Why he not here? I
want to see him – she says all serious and excited.
Christa, who seems to be handling
the situation very well says in a motherly tone: And why are you not in bed at
this time eh? You little cute thing... You’d go to bed.
Girl: No, no... –she says in a low
voice and changes topic- Can you write that for my boyfriend?
Christa writes something on the
girl’s hand and off she goes to show it to her boyfriend. Who the boyfriend in
particular was or how much of a boyfriend was it is unknown... But for a very young girl she seems to have
lived a lot already – I wonder where she will be in ten years time.
11.30pm: We are at JJs dance floor and it is going off. Mostly
tourists around, it is quite hot and humid, sweating a lot. The staff is also
international and one of the bartender girls is from England. She came for a
couple of weeks and has been here for six months. She doesn’t really know how
much longer she will stay, it is an easy
life without too many responsibilities “and I get free booze every night”.
Noted.
They have some sort of party going
on and we get painted in glowing
green, pink and orange colours. After a few more cocktails and rocket-fuelled
buckets, we manage to lose each other at some point and head back at different
times.
Saturday 7 April – Paint, wi-fi and beach
5.00pm: We are by the hotel beach recovering from the night before.
The paint does not go despite
showers and swims and we still have live traces over our faces and bodies. “It
went a bit wild” I seem to recall saying.
After ordering a couple of beers,
David gives one of the quotes of the trip so far: “Hhhmmm... The wi-fi goes very slow in here...” says more for
himself than for everyone and a touch disappointed.
Now, to picture this, “here”
means: by the beach in Cambodia, at 28C, under a couple of nice coconut palm
trees, while the very smartly dressed waiter is bringing three cold draft beers
to our small table. Behind us there is a little pond, lake with some lake-type
plants and flowers, with the nearest building about 50 metres away...
Pabs can’t help himself and adds
on “What?! Yes, you are right... Wi-fi goes very slow here... it is crap!” and we all laugh loud.
7.00pm: It is another amazing sunset – I am running out of
adjectives- and the light blueish green clouds are beautiful. On a scale of 1
to 10, it is probably a 8.5 as the one the day before was more like a 9. Still,
you can’t get enough of it.
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| One final sunset by the beach... Not too bad. |
9.00pm: At a guesthouse pub watching a Premier League football game
on a big screen. I notice how some of the guests are on their laptops and iPads
typing away – wifi does not go that slow in here... One is watching some video
on her iPhone with her headphones plugged. Thank
you Steve Jobs.
11.00pm: We are at one of the three bars, and Christa and her auntie
have joined us for a few drinks. Turns out to be a great night with some crazy
moments, including a massive downpour
as a storm finally came our way. It is wild and wet and free. It is Cambodia after all.
Sunday 8 April – Caves, bats and a shark, alive.
11.00am: We say our goodbyes
to Pabs, who is leaving for his early flight to Hong Kong tomorrow while
David and I hire a taxi for the day. It has been great to see Pableras again
and we will catch up in a few days in Hong Kong for the much anticipated Steve
and Carol’s wedding.
A little road trip is ahead for us and it turns out to be a great day.
Fortunately our driver, Sandar,
speaks very good English and is very chatty and polite – like everyone else we
have met in Cambodia. He moved here from the South four years ago, leaving his
family farm behind. Working part time as a driver and waiter places him in a
much better position than staying at the farm.
He also has a three years old
daughter and his wife does not work. He has big responsibilities.
Unlike Sankar, our great tour
guide in Siem Reap, Sandar did not have to raise any money to marry his wife.
It all comes down to each village’s traditions he tells us.
As we drive down to the Kampot area, the road starts to show
some of its potholes and lack of regular maintenance and we go sometimes from
right to left to right, even at crawling speed. “In the wet season it is a lot
worse as you only see the water and then BUM!
Big pothole under water” Sandar tells us.
I notice again several volleyball
nets as we drive along. It is common with Vietnam and “it is very popular in
Cambodia; people don’t have space for football pitch”. It is not beach
volleyball, but it is about having fun and playing sports.
12.00pm: Off the road we see the usual landscape of Cambodia, which
is very much like the one in Vietnam: humble huts, trees and plants, groceries
vendors, kids and people hanging around. Easy
life, probably.
I also notice my eyesight is a lot
better than in London. I have not been staring to a computer screen for 10+
hours a day, nor watching 2+ hours of TV, in a few weeks and it really makes a
difference to your eyes. It is good. Easy
life, surely.
1.00pm: We stop at Kampot
Market. Whilst similar to most of the other markets we have visited, this
one has the peculiarity that its plastic roofs are not particularly high. As
in, with my 1.93m, my head is way above
and I have to constantly be hunching forward and right to left to right to
avoid hitting whatever is on my way.
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| I am too tall, or am I? |
At the same time I feel a
different buzz about this place. It is super crowded, busy and loud; it has
that combination of smells from fresh to not-so-fresh and noises and people
hanging about. Yet it has something a
little special. We stop at a sugar
cane fresh juice place and get two fresh juices. The machine squeezes the
canes in a matter of seconds and, poured over a glass with ice, to me it tastes
great. I love my sweet stuff and it’s like tea, without the tea, and a touch of
cane with lots of sugar (it may seem obvious, I know).
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| Local market - local people |
The town itself is quite worn out
and there’re very few signs that it is moving forward with run down buildings
and poor streets and roads. But it is a crazy little place.
2.00pm: We reach the Kampot
Caves, which have been there thousands of years - I will not go on about their
history but feel free to go on the internet to find out what they are.
A group of five or six young children greets us happily and
with great English. The oldest one is 15 and quite tall for the average. His nickname
is Justin Bieber, huh?... Another
one is called Nam, nicknamed Michael
and is 11. There are a few younger girls whose nicknames vary from Vanessa to Jennifer, or something like that. We walk through some rice fields
as the caves are about 500 metres away. The kids, as usual, make us the 3
Famous Questions and throw some Spanish words in between like “muchas gracias”
or “vamos”. They are good fun.
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| From left to right: Justin, Sandar, David, Nam and Vanessa |
We go up the 200 steps staircase with the kids playing jokes about this and that. As we go up we have a chance to look around and see the rice fields and farms extending for miles, always a flat landscape with some palm trees here and there.
We reach the main entrance to the caves and we are about ten metres above the
base and some ten under its great natural ceiling. A combination of stalactites
and stalagmites fuse with stones of multiple colours, from white to yellow to
cream or dark green.
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| Main Entrance to the cave from the inside - old man on the right |
Our mini-tour guides point to many
shapes and figures on the stones:
‘You see, and elephant there’,
says Justin.
‘And a butterfly there’ points
Nam.
There is also a man-made temple of dark orange stone colour,
apparently built around the year 600 or so. It is very tiny, of no more than
two metres high by two metres wide. As I enter half my body to look inside it,
one of the girls jumps out of the dark inside shouting ‘BOOOOOOO!!!!!’ and manages to scare the hell out of me, while
laughing and running away.
‘I will get you back!’ I shout at
her as everyone laughs loud, including Sandar who has joined us too.
We look around and some of the
kids climb up some of the walls, disappear for ten, twenty or thirty seconds
and then appear somewhere else a few metres away. They seem to know the place
even with their eyes closed.
An older man who was sitting at
the entrance joins us as we decide to go through the caves.
‘It is only ten minutes sir!’
Justin tells us. ‘It is all dark and there are bats. It is fun, you will be ok!’
I am seriously questioning whether
I want to do this – I remember my cousin, and I tell to myself he is looking
after me from up there somewhere, and decide I will do it for him.
I am not 15 or 11 and I am not
1.50 metres, like these kids... Hmmm...
‘What the hell, this is what we
came for’ I tell Justin, without really knowing where were we getting ourselves
into. David and Sandar join too.
Off we go and I switch on my little twelve year old in me, the same one that
climbed the Siem Reap temples. ‘This could be fun’ I tell myself, reassuringly.
As we drop the first stone and it
is pitch black inside, I light up my mobile phone lantern, and so does David. Now,
that would be easy if it wasn’t because we had to constantly up and down
stones, rocks and small alleyways, and thanks to my height I am feeling a
little too big for some of the spaces – it is not the Cuchi tunnels from
Vietnam but it is all raw, dark and exciting at the same time.
Justin voluntarily offers to hold
the phone for me and the rest of the kids go around us pointing where we should
be putting our hands and feet.
‘Hand there Sir... very good. Now
foot there, see? There... very good. Easy!’
We have now been walking inside
the caves for a few minutes and if it wasn’t for the phones lights it would be
completely dark. It is not cold but the air is different. The kids point the
phones’ lights to the ceiling and we can see bats flying around at about 10-15
metres above us– we are disturbing their nap time. It is a beautiful view, even
though we cannot see much of it, as I stop for a moment to think that this has
been here for thousands of years.
THANK YOU WORLD.
The girl from the tiny temple
continues to play along and manages to scare me a couple of more times – one as
a snake grabbing my feet ‘ssssshhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!’ which I shake off and almost slip
while she laughs loud again, as does everyone else.
I am sweating, a lot. It is a
combination of the exercise and movements we are making with the adrenaline of
doing this and the uncertainty of what is ahead. If we didn’t have the children
around, we would have never made it, no doubt. There is a little pond where
water from rain remains steady. They tell us there are crocodiles there – we do
not want to find out for real as we continue along, thank you very much.
The end of the caves is near and
we start to see some natural light, as well as the roots of some of the old
trees at the top of the caves. We grab them to go from one stone to the other,
over the water – we are not Tarzan but it is fun too. It is good to see that we can also adapt to the environment when we
have to, and not the other way round.
After what have been some of the longest 10-15 minutes of my life, we
are definitely at the end of the caves. I am completely drenched in sweat, from head to toes, and so are
David and Sandar. The older man who was at the entrance has been with us all
along but has said nothing. I thank him too for having come with us and there is
no need for words.
As we get back to the car, we give
the kids a few dollas and they are
more than grateful. It was a great little experience and I am glad we did it.
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| WE MADE IT! Now get me some water! |
3.30pm: We stop at a small fish market on our way to the small beach town of Kep.
It is buzzing with small boats
bringing fresh fish and women immediately taking it and cooking for sale or eating.
We catch on camera the moment they bring a small
young shark, still completely alive.
The woman, wearing the usual outfit and simple gloves, puts it for a minute on
a small cage as she grabs it from the tail. She then grabs it and... 1, 2, 3 and 4 hard slams of the shark’s
head on the ground knock it out partially. She deposits it on the cage again
and we can see it is still breathing, but not really moving, as Sandar picks it
up with some excitement.
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| From live to cooked in a few minutes - c'est la vie! |
She comes back and takes it
towards the boiling pots where they have crabs, lobsters and all sort of seafood;
on her way she bangs hard the shark’s head once again, PUM!, now against a pillar. Now it must be dead.
Within a minute or two she has
cleared one of the big pots, makes sure the water is boiling hot and off it
goes the shark inside. She leaves it there for another minute or so only and
when she picks it up it is completely hard rock, bleeding by the mouth and lungs.
Now it definitely is 100% dead.
4.00pm: We have stopped by the small beach of Kep and Sandar surprises
us with a great picnic he cooked
from 5.00am this morning. We have some salad, fried rice with egg and a lovely
barracuda fish cooked with the most delicious of sauces – a bit of ginger, a
bit of pepper and many other spices which, if I was a cook, I would be able to decipher;
but I am not one, so you will have just to guess.
“So, Sandar, I can tell you. You
are not only a driver, but you have showed us around very well, speak really
good English and, to top it off, are also a great cook! I am impressed!” I tell
him, while he modestly smiles and says “thanks, thanks, it is ok you know”.
“No, seriously, have you not thought
about being a tour guide? You would do very well” I tell him.
“Oh nooo, no tour guide. It is very
difficult” he responds.
“Why is it?”
“Oh it is very expensive, and I
would have to go to Phnom Pem for three months” he explains, assumingly, “and I
have my family”.
“Oh really? I didn’t know” I say,
feeling slightly sorry for him. “I am sure you would do a very good tour guide.
I hope you can do it one day if you want to”.
On the beach, a group of ten to
fifteen children of young age play with rubber tyres. It is the school holiday
as they prepare to celebrate the Cambodian New Year between 13-14-15 of April,
and they love it.
In the background, tens of people doze on the hammocks under cover. It is some sight.
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| ZZZzzzzzZZzZZZ zzZZZZ zzzzzzZzzZzzzzZZZZ..... |
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| Something is brewing... |
As the sun starts to set and by virtue of Mother Nature, it looks as if the cloud is a super-slow motion explosion of whiteness suspended up in the air, less than 5-7 km away, with its centre turning orange and yellow, just like if it was the sun itself captured inside the cloud and wanting to escape. It also changes shape and form as we continue to drive. I am in total awe of it.
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| And the storm will be HUGE |
7.30pm: We are reaching the hotel, it is now night and the white cloud has become a massive storm. The lightning is extraordinary and a massive succession of one after another is an incredible spectacle. It is miles away and we can barely hear the thunder as we stop and get out of the car to enjoy it for a few minutes. Unfortunately my phone camera does not take good pictures at dark so you will just have to imagine it.
As we get to the hotel I go on the
swimming pool to enjoy the show while having a very refreshing beer. It is an
outstanding display and I am enjoying it very much; comparable to watching the
fireplace at home in the winter while having a glass of wine, or a Gin & Tonic :)
9.30pm: It is our final and quiet night in Cambodia before flying
tomorrow to Bangkok. I look back at the past ten days and I remember:
- The Siem Reap Temples
- The
memories of the War
- The green colour of the humble country
- The simple lives and friendly
people, with their smiles and ‘one dolla’ deals
- The stunning sunsets and
glorious storms
- A couple of crazy nights, with
their buckets and dance floors
It has been a great, eye opening
trip. Alongside Vietnam, it is very different from what we call developed
countries, and yet there is something special which developed countries do not
have.
THANK YOU CAMBODIA,
YOU HAVE BEEN GREAT TO US
AND I WISH YOU CAN CONTINUE
TO GROW YOUR COUNTRY
WITH THE BIG HEART AND KINDNESS
YOUR PEOPLE HAS.
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