Two weeks into Island life

 

"View from the office" herherher

This island is literally me just summarised on a map. 

Hanging out with Tiff!

So far so good, I haven’t had any resemblances to Shutter Island, Castaway or the Scooby Doo film with Mr Bean in it (or other island films I can’t think of right now). Just lots of flashbacks to doing one two many Joss shots, Dangercan and shouting motivation words to a couple further along the beach who were having a REALLY good night (if you know what I mean) with my bro from the Cruise Ship Big Gay Will (he actually just got fired from the ship for trying to steer it 4 times over the driving limit it wasn’t so funny I’d be concerned) He’s difficult to miss being the whitest, lankiest giant on the island. I did need to drown my sorrows after he told me that he crashed Barry but Barry is fine and all the drinks were at Will’s expense. 

Island Life is a unique way of living for sure. It’s a everyone-knows-everyone environment which means there's no escape from hearing what you got up to the night before (even if you don’t want to hear it!) but there’s also a big health risk here, number one is there is no medical centre so you really have to trust your gut and just hoping you’ll bump into a backpacking nurse or pray the lady in pharmacy knows more than you and google. My friend who invited me to the Island- Stella had two worms living in her feet. Two. Worms. Living. In. Her. Feet. And I quote:

“Touch it! Feels so weird. Sometimes I can feel it wriggling and when it moves it sometimes leaves a trail mark!”

No weird diseases for sure

Weird tropical rashes are common and the risk of any “diseases” (winkwink) is also very high. But no need to worry about that side of me I’m a born again virgin after having to shove cotton wool up crocodiles Colakas (a story for another post) back in 2015. 

My job is cool. Literally hanging out in the trees, or stroll along the beach and hand out flyers and call it work. I make $3 for every person I take around the course and commission on tickets (but that doesn’t happen often) and $3 goes a long way when all you eat is rice and beer is 75c a can. So funding my binge drinking and banana addiction, great! So far it’s been monkey free, so no need for the water gun yet. I wish I could say the same for mosquitos- don’t even get me started on those blood sucking arseholes.

Beats rush hour - my commute to work

Cons of living in the jungle is that I am surrounded by malaria-spreading, irritating, skin destroying wastes of life- and there is nothing I can do (reminds me a little bit of college minus the malaria risk). Fristly they aint your normal mozzies. They’re Super Mutant Mozzies, about the size of your thumbnail. It’s almost like they’ve been leeching off radioactive joss-infected backpackers- (oh wait…) Perks are that you can see them. All 20 of them suckling on your legs everytime you decide to look down. But it’s fine- pay $20 for some 100% DEET spray and watch as it does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

I’d like to call their impact my Cambodian Tattoo aka the 100’s of scabs ridden across my body from their itchy as hell bites. There is definite satisfaction knowing that under my hand is what was a mosquito and that it’s now one mosquito less in the world because of me. When you get  Triple Whammy (getting 3+ at the same time with one palm splat) I sadistically like to leave their (or my) remains on me as a warning to their mates OI COME TRY IT MATE SEE WHAT HAPPENED ENTER THE GRAVEYARD FOR MY BLOOD SEE IF IT’S WORTH IT!

I have introduced the “mozzie jig” to my customers, which is basically me two-stepping and flailing my limbs around to stop them landing on me. Definitely not coming to a club near you anytime soon. I am now pretty confident on my Jackie Chan reflexes to having them land on me. You can only imagine the ungracefullnesss of me right now. But you know, nothing says bravery like building up the courage to leave the comfort of  your mosquito net and seeing the army not only hovering outside but trying to penetrate the walls nd knowing your only guard is sitting in an orange can on the counter downstairs.

AND the obnoixios pests can also astronomically annoy the shit out of you even when you’re half conscious and asleep. BuuuUUUzzzzZZZZzzzzzZZzzzzzzz SLAP to the side of your face but bbBBbbbbuuuuuUUUUuuuZzzzzZZZzzzzZZZZzzz but somehow he lives on making you just look like an idiot slapping youself in the face then finally after repeating this for about half hour SLAP and silence….for a total of about three minutes until the next one comes along. Repeat this process all night until your alarm goes off. Okay, so I got started on mosquitos. Wait till the rant I have if I catch Dengue.

Large picture because I look nice xoxo

So- work! My coworkers are characters, most nights involve Khmer Whisky and throwing things off the balcony. But it’s all good fun! Two of the other instructors are Sverta and Igor, a recently married Russian couple. Sverta actually just said to me as I was typing:

“Beekah. For friends and family of yours. Yeeeeassss? Please say hello. And. International Freedom Forever (peace sign)”

We also have my manger Nat who’s great. He’s from Bristol but he’s spent so much time around non-native English speaking Russians that his English is now TERRIBLE 

“Me Good. Day Good. Becca happy?” which translates to “Alright geeza, I’m frekkin brillo! Had a fantastic day! How’s it going for you Bexx?” NATHANIAL YOU’RE FROM BRISTOL! He’s cool though, I told him that I liked his music the other day (a mix of electroswing, dubstep, remixes or weird and wonderful) and he played Sweet Caroline- I mean, who doesn’t like that song? So then after y compliment I am greeted by Sweet Caroline again but this time an indie version. Then a Dubstep version. Then a Reggae version and the list goes on until at least half an hour had passed.

The owner is a Russian guy with a mullet.

And Jake, he’s sound. Cycled from England to Australia in two years. Cool guy.

But the Russians (and all their friends) come to drink at the centre. Drinking with Russians is interesting for sure! First of all they’ve been trying to teach me Russian (which I cannot remember a word of!) but the alphabet is “just like the English one, but it doesn’t sound the same and has extra shit added”…helpful. 

Me and Anuschka, my Swizz partner in crime

They then wanted to share their favourite things about Russia with me (not just vodka). One thing, don’t let them know you don’t know much about Nelson. They’re really passionate. Next they decided to educate me and “prepare me against Putin Propaganda” with “Winnie Pooh” which is Russian Winnie the Pooh (see, almost the same) it’s great and I would’ve wished I had seen it years ago but maybe not as a child the terrible dubbing isn’t too inspiring. So Winnie Pooh he has no legs but “IT IS ART NOT A DOCUMENTARY NOT UP FOR DISCUSSION” and PLEASE do not try to tell them that their National Treasure, Guiame the singing crocodile, sounds French. They do not like that. 

It’s an interesting relationship we all have. But I told you they were characters.

So money can be a bit unpredictable as for budget and food you wouldn’t understand the variations of rice you can make when that’s all you’re willing to spend your money on (and mango’s from my mango lady friend!) rice, egg fried rice, mango sticky rice, rice pudding, fried banana rice, cold banana rice, pineapple fried rice you get the idea. Every $ I save on food I can then spend on beer!

As I said I have to sit down on a bridge in the jungle and try to promo the place for some $$. This means I spend a lot of time in the day- doing nothing. So I’m trying to be proactive and I’m learning Khmer from my Mango lady friend so far I know:

Hello – Su-Sa-Day

Have you eaten rice (how’re you?) – Sok-Sa-Bye

Yes I have eaten rice (I’m good) – Si-Sa-Bok

Mango Sweet – Swhy Tom Im

Mango Sour –Swhy Jai Hue

Pineapple - Minoah

Monkey - Swayh

Breadroll – Nom Pang

Big - Tomtom

Small - Tiktik

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 20 – Moi, Pi, Bye, Boo-an, Prrrram, Dup, Pie. Then you add 1+5 for 6, 10+5+2 for seventeen etcetc

 and I try to help her kids out with their English alphabets. Sometimes I share my food with them, sometimes they give me some free food. Everyone is a winner and they’re amazing people! I also am trying to train myself to slackline…but that’s a work in progress.

A few snaps of me looking happy with some animals :

Sober- as per