Sun, Sea, and Stepping in Shit with No Shoes: Welcome Back To Paradise

Koh Rong! The floating mass of land that concurred my heart a few years ago. Drifting through the sea with bioluminescent specs of plankton, spending my days in the treetops with the echoes of the flourishing jungle and with the nights I can't remember; but certainly won't forget. Two years after I first stepped foot here and I have fully embraced the sand between my toes and the salt settling on my scalp once again.

This year's circumstances have slightly altered things for me, the most immediate change being that I intended to stay on the island for just a few weeks, and by the looks of it, I'm going to be sticking around for the foreseeable future...again.

After being split-down-the-middle with my options to return or to stick out the pandemic in the safety, security and comfort of Battambang... it's easy to say I made the right decision on my return. As soon as I climbed in the boat I had flashbacks of two years ago doing the same journey. The only differences were that the boat was much more full then, we weren't preparing for the pending apocalypse..and I had a beer back then.

I've been splitting my time between my family here and the abandoned (and appropriately titled) "Coconut Beach" sleeping in my hammock, in a beach shack. Aside from a couple of locals at the end of the beach, my friends here are the only people left on the beach, so we're part of a tiny percentage of the world that can still enjoy some social time. Playing volleyball, and sharing stories over coffee.

As well as plenty of seafood, there's not much chance of anyone going hungry here when there's so many wild pineapples, jackfruit, coconuts, cashews, and mangos... Just to name a few. I've even made my own (worlds first?) recipe for Pulled Cashew Apple.



I'm finding it difficult to believe how much I was questioning it. In what world would you rather learn the words for "traffic" "road" "I live here, I'm not travelling and I don't have corona" when I already know the words for "sand" "sea" "there's a chicken in the kitchen".

We've made a swear jar " Don't Moan(a) or Mention C*rona ". I'm personally trying not to think too much about it or read anything other than essential and direct news. But I am spending a lot of time thinking about my family and friends at the time. My grandparents, my cousins who are expecting the newest additions to the family (and their first babies!), friends and family who have lost their jobs. I'm in a very lucky position to say that I'm surrounded by exceptionally strong and people and we will all get through this.
 
That's not to say it's all rainbows and sunshine here; as the title of this post suggests. THAT anecdote is pretty self-explanatory. I should also point out that my body is like a human dot-to-dot with all these mosquito and sandfly bites, a 2-meter king cobra was found about a two-minute walk from my house this week...and I haven't had a single drop of alcohol in two weeks. Alas, for now, I'm trying to look on the bright side. Keeping away from the doom-and-gloom of the internet, the monotonous moans of social media and getting back to basics to appreciate the little things in life...like how everyone has finally stopped talking about Brexit.

photos!

2020: The Future is Bright (Especially Now That I`m Teaching Them)

SPOILER ALERT:
The title is a bit of a giveaway...so I`m a teacher now! A bit of filling in on the past six weeks or so and how I`ve ended up here.

obviously im cultured, you dont know a country until you`ve tried their beer... and fell asleep with it....

Thailand December 

Thailand saw me spending a few days by myself on Koh Mak, an island just off the central west coast of Thailand. In 2018 I visited the neighbouring island of Koh Change (Elephant Island) and this time I wanted to style down to an island I could walk around, and happily camp on.

Here`s a little picture of my set up. I found a little space slightly off the path:
A few days, a few books, some swimming, sunbathing, bike rides.

I had been given the warning of snakes on the island, which I ignored...until someone mentions that a 10ft python had been found very recently...so that night I went to sleep expecting a full on Harry Potter Basilisk attack...when my real fear should`ve been the positioning of my hammock under two palm trees and the whole coconuts-kill-more-people-a-year-than-sharks...

Sri Lanka December 

After promising to visit my two friends from my cruise ship days, over two years later I finally made it! I ended up staying with my friend Stephan and his Mum just outside of Colombo. Sri Lanka saw me filling my body full of samosas, kotthu roti, curry and other short eats. I think it`s fair to say that the food was incredible!

The country is beautiful and the people are so friendly...some are maybe a little bit too friendly. Getting dryhumped on a rush hour train in the 35° heat aint my idea of a good time, and as for the butt grabbing? My sharp tongue was enough to put an end to that. After a month in SL I had a great time, but it didn`t have my heart like Cambodia does...so back I came.

Cambodia (again)January 

Good timing with flights saw a catch up with my friend Alliey from Tenerife at a Mitchlin star restaurant in Bangkok (that cost about a quid for a meal!). Then plans to return to Koh Rong have been temporarily put on hold as I take to the classroom to teach some English. 

Happy new year anyone who still reads this! Big plans for 2020 involving two wheels and over 10,000km so this should be getting more regular updates and a bit more exciting soon. 

So Long Koh Rong

Wedding of the year

Alas, the day I feared may never arrive has came and went! I finally put on a pair of shoes*, backed up my room, and hopped onboard a boat off the Island.  After a fantastic, boozy, sunny, healthy, memorable (unmemorable), 8 months on paradise the time has arrived for me to step back onto dry land and "the real world" (whatever that is) well, Sihoukville and the relm of terribly built casinos, overcrowded streets and death by tuktuk. Safe to say as soon as I stepped off the boat I wanted to say

 "JUST KIDDING TAKE ME BACK"

So what even happened for my last 10 weeks on the island? Very good question. We finally got my replacement member of staff, Kiwi called Blake. Great news, because it meant I could drop down to part time and get around to spending my last month doing some camping, hanging out and topping up my non existent tan. We have a running joke on the island that the people who live there are always the palest cause we're always inside the bars drinking (or in my case, hanging out in the shade of the trees).

I adopted a little pet dog, he was really sick and found under a decking the bar I was drinking in, so naturally I had to help him out. Knowing I couldn't keep him, he was only there for a week until he found a better owner on the mainland but he went from having "one or two days" left, to having a new lease for life. Job. Done. As well as my little baby cat Klang getting on absolutely perfectly.

Some other people didn't get such good news with their health. Part of my job is to walk up and down the beach and try to sell some tickets (and make myself a little bit of money). So one day I approach these boys and ask them if they wanted any information about things to do on the island yaddayadda and this is what I got in response:

"Naaa, we've just come here to get FUCKED UP...

do you know where we can get some drugs...?"

Not my cuppa tea gents, have a lovely time on this beautiful island. Fast forwards to later that evening and we're all enjoying a rum and mango (or 4) and a guy comes in asking for a doctor, luckily my friend Frankie is an emergency nurse. Turns out this guy has fallen from the balcony at a neighbouring bar/guesthouse. He's fallen from the 3rd floor onto concrete. We get there and we're expecting the worst. I get on the crowd control "Are you his brother? No? Are you a doctor? No? Okay turn ya phones off and move along, nothing to see here..." whilst Frankie does her thing and with it being 2am, and no hospital on the island he gets taken onto an emergency boat to mainland. What had happened was he had found what he was looking for and was swinging around the balconys and fell. well, hey mate. You did what you came here to do. Luckily for him, he ended up with just a broken wrist. How? I do not know. 

We had to keep ourselves entertain in the low season, so whilst the Pub Crawl was off we decided to do the next best thing, a Mini Mart March (seeing that our little village now has 23 of them, over the 7 bars we have). The Pub Crawl on the island is the Richie Rich Pub Crawl, so we adopted the title with our good friend Mitch, the Mitchy Mitch M.M.M. It just involved us going to every shop open past 10pm when everyone finished their shifts, having a beer in each and pulling in the strays (and wrestling to the death

in the sand).

On the island we have two charities. One for the islanders and the children, Friends Of Koh Rong. They organise beach cleans, help feed families, teach english and do great things to the community. We had a big fundraiser and my friend Te asked me to help with reading the raffle prizes. You can imagine what I'm like on a microphone, now gimme a few drinks and I'm sure he regretted the decision, although me and my comedy duo partner Dennis were apparently VERY entertaining. Enough so that when Pups in Paradise (they bring the vets over and keep all of our island animals in good nick, neutering and providing medicine etc) held their fundraiser I was offered the microphone slot again. Substantially more sober, I actually got a fair few compliments on my Audio Ability and that I should take it up a profession, oo-err.

My final week on the island saw a big blow out to end. Connor and Berni also had the day off so we said about doing a boat trip- WELL that escalated quickly. Bring on the Curious Connor Boat Trip. We ended up hiring out own boat, getting 3 crates of beer and gathering everyone last minute, making them bunk off work (or later, kicked off their shift for enjoying one too many bevvies) and join. We did a little bar hop from Suns Of Beaches hostel, to Nestival Day Sesh, M'Pai Bay, then back. It's definitely one of those "you had to be there" moments but for sure one of my best days on the island and a perfect note to end on.

The cue for me to leave was my favourite bar closing down as it was the end of their lease, so we saw it out with a bang and a 4 day sesh leading up to Halloween. This also saw 6 of my close friends leaving so time for me to go onto my new chapter. After making 100's more global friends, a lifelong island family, some disgusting bite scars on my legs but another great chapter in my book of life.

My last week on the Island saw my old housemate from Tenerife, Danny, come to join me over in Cambodia for 3 weeks. I introduced him to island life well, showed him the ropes (literally, took him around High Point) and then we set off to see the rest of the country. But unfortunately, our trip was cursed from day one. We took my old travel companion, Barry, off the island for a bit of TLC from a mechanic...well. RIP Barry. Ended up scrapping him for $10. The mechanic told me that if I carried on driving him for even 30 mins he'd set on fire (even after repairs). Bikeless and looking for plan B we decided to get out of the hellhole that is Sihnoukville and head to Kampot for some better luck. Our plan B was to hire bikes and drive round on them or try buy new ones. Well that all fell through and so did the budget and we just opted for a holiday instead, massages, cinema trips, fancy hotels, dinners out but still, had an amazing time.

temples so ancient you can't help but have a taste

In Kampot we went on a riverboat trip called Rhymes On The River which is a cruise along with live music, a few bevvies and some fire spinning. One evening we decided it'd be fun to get a happy pizza (imagine Space Cakes, but on a pizza...sorry Nan) so we order a Vegetarian pizza cover with spinich, onions, tomatoes etc and a ..."special ingredient". the table next to us also are the herbivor types and ordered the same pizza. So our pizza arrives and we look at it and decide it looks like a normal pizza?? and the girls next to us decide to tuck in to theirs. Then the waiter comes over and looks really confused, double takes between us, the girls, our pizza, their pizza then comes up to us like ohhh. I forgot to add the "special ingredient". Then we realise the girls have got our happy pizza and we have their original...WELL lets just say I wish I could've followed them around for the rest of the night cause they had NO idea!
 

reminder of the so recent genocide

 Then we came to Phnom Penh, revisited the Killing Fields and Genocide Museum. Then headed over to a new town for me, Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor. We decided, as classic know-it-all tourists that we could drive 150km, round trip to some ancient temple ruins called Bantaey Chhmar, have an explore and be back by about 7pm after leaving at 2pm...Well we made it to the temples, just as darkness fell at 7pm But exploring ancient ruins in the pitch black makes a better Indiana Jones feeling than in the daytime with tourists anyway! Riddled with snakes, after about an hour of exploring and a bat flying straight into my face, we decided to make the trip back home. After being pelted at 50km in the eyes with fireflies Danny fashioned himself a great pair of eyewear from some selotape, voila!

Danny's now heading back to England after a fab few weeks catching up and I'm heading over to Vietnam after Cambodia's water festival, picking up a cheap new bike and zooming around here for another few weeks.

*maybe if I put my shoes on sooner I would realise the only thing worse than stepping in dog shit, is stepping in dog shit with no shoes on

“Noo, not the Cumin!”

When you work 26/31 days a month you meet a few characters, see a few things and gather a few interesting anecdotes. Here’s a few favourites since my last post:

So; here I am zooming through the jungle on a zipline, same as I do 3 times a day then BOOM my life flashes before my eyes as I think my safety clips have combusted and smacked me in the back of the head becuase something has just wacked me right in the bullseye below my helmet. No other explanation other for the sudden pain because there’s no trees in the way, no super speed birds flying past. Confused; I take off my helmet to reveal the the little shitbags from next door were using me as human target practice as a marble fell out. Why I outta! –shakes fist-

Next up my “tiktik con chhamar” (little baby cat) is doing well, super cute and sitting on my lap as I type this. Well, he decided to come to work with me last week. Usually that’s easy as all he has to do is walk downstairs and play with the ropes and harness’ left out like he normally does…nope. He decides to climb up a 10 meter pole and join me on the platform. Not the usual message I have to radio through to say:

“Nat, Nat, Nat. Please can you come rescue my cat out of a tree”

As seen in my last post, I do get some arseholes I have to pretend to like (as seen in my last post). Most recently we have a boy from Kent and his 3 mates. Same age as me, not too far either so I think it’s nice I can have a laugh with them. Wrong. They come in DEMANDING discount. Why? “We NEVER pay full price for ANYTHING. You’re going to give it to us for $25.” Umm, well mate I never pay full price for anything either but you don’t see me being an arsehole about it. So sorry, no discount for you. Then he decides to kick off with the whole “white tax”. Well, face it Barang (white boy) you’re in a 3^rd world country, if you’ve used up all your money on a 16 month holiday around the world when 1/3^rd of the population of this country have to survive off less than $1 a day then open your eyes to the real world where you have the accessibility of being able to get a job in a Halifax Call Centre of Sainsburys Check Out and earn $20k a year. THAT’S called White Privilege something the people of Cambodia and many places in the world aren’t born into and can’t just do without any experience or education or without moving overseas. So face it mate- paying an extra 2000rl (50c) for some egg fried rice aint the worst thing in the world.

But even with all my recent sassy comments I may give the impression I’m an impatient person or simply bad at my job but firstly it takes a hella lot of patience to guide a group of Chinese around he park who’s only words are “okay, ready, go” –video game style- and not only keep them safe and smiling but to keep them educated on the wildlife (my dinosaur, lizard, monkey, and snail impressions are ones to witness) especially after they failed to understand my tongue in the self-taught Chinese I learnt. But it is really lovely for me to hear about people having fun in a place I’m proud to say I work and we are currently the number 1 thing to do on the island according to trip advisor so if you’d like to read some nice things you can check that out here.

Home is good, Klang is good, Nat is good, Anton (my crazy Russian boss) is good. Monkey’s breaking into my house and stealing my eggs? Not so good. And I suppose you’re wondering where the title of this blog originated. Well…picture this (better in slow motion)…

Customer: Look! –points to tree- a monkey!

Me: Oh no you don’t you feral beast!

-Runs upstairs, hair wild in the artificial wind created by moving at such speed. A war inspired cry is being chanted “Oiiiibooafffyafuhhcarssss” to see dog sized monkeys (no seriously, dog sized) scarpering from my kitchen followed by a cry downstairs…-

Nat: “Noooooooooo, not the cumin!”

-our mammal brothers gallivant off through the trees with our favorite bag of spice in the clutches of their jaws-

…jungle problems.

I’ve been keeping myself *moderately* sober recently by attending the best fake western wedding koh rong has to offer, some bonfires and re-ann khami (learning Cambodian)

walking in style 

I’ve been owed a few days off this month so due to my prolonged holiday departure date I decided to have the 23^rd-25^th off leaving my Thursday – Saturday to do whatever I want. The original plan for Wednesday night and Thursday fell through so cooked some rice and packed an overnight bag and decided to go for a walk. Wellllllllll, fast forward 30km and 2 days later I found myself in the remote most northern village (one of four) on the island named Prek Sway meaning “mango river”. And I ended up having two of my favourite days and two of my scariest nights since arriving to the island 5 months ago.

Setting off Thursday with no agenda I decided to just walk. So by 5pm I found myself in Sang Kaa, the smallest of the four villages in the island and a small fishing and material import port for the islands building supplies. There I was invited by a “bong” (brother) for moi, pi beer sra (one or two beers) and some Karaoke (god they love it over here). Come 6pm and everyone “at mien arr’am, charram sra” (no have party, too much alcohol) so they all bailed and went to bed. Lucky for me I had enough time enough time (not really) to pitch up my hammock on Coconut Beach for the evening. Luckily for me it was a “tom low kai”  (full moon) so that helped a lot with the whole seeing thing.

not a bad view to wake up to 

Day two saw an early morning bath/shower/swimming the sea before continuing the journey to anywhere that took my interest. Deserted beach, boggy swamps, ancient mangroves, GIANT TREES…coastal routes and jungle treks (dense untouched foliage was a personal highlight… “how did I get here? How do I get out? Where did I come from? Ouch that was spikey. THIS VINE HAS TRAPPED MY FOOT! That bug looks like its going to eat me’ etcetc) fast-forward a good few kilometers later and numerously turned down lifts from passing motos and I decided I’d make that evenings destination some abandoned bungalows that I was told about some weeks before. About 4pm I decided to think about starting to pack down for the evening- collect some fire wood, put up my hammock, go for a swim etc. Luckily for me 10 minutes later I recognized the path and I had reached my destination and I did exactly as I planned.

Abandoned bungalow 

Bongs

Coming back from my swim I am greeted by some bongs and we get talking, to the extent that I know maybe 100 words in Khmi and they know “hello” so we all did a bit of learning. We get talking about Song Saa and I think they’re asking if I’m staying at the 5* resort just off the coast for $1500 a night, so I reply “at mien song say, a’tay loy” meaning I have no Song Saa, I have no money. But they keep pointing to the oldest bong like ‘Song Saa! Song Saa!!” sooooo moving onto the next day and I find out that Song Saa also means partner. Like boyfriend, girlfriend. Now replace the conversation and you can understand how my evening pieced together. So “knoym bong” (my bros) warn me about “steel p’shue” (storm) and “cha’ram pree’un” (lots of rain) and invite me to sleep in their abandoned warehouse. As kind as the offer was I didn’t want the only other people on LONELY BEACH to know my sleeping arrangements so I decline and tell them I’ll sleep in the jungle. After seeing the family living off “try san mot bye” (rice and fish from the ocean) it felt rude to refuse. So I take shelter in the alternative arrangement. Unluckily for me my 

the bed of horror films

songsaa I locked the door so when my mixed signals and miscommunication got the better of bong he couldn’t get in my room in the middle of the night…at least when I woke up in the morning he wasn’t standing outside my door with a machete….All a big misunderstanding! And I carried on my walk to Prek Sway.

The plan then was to get to the village then hitch hike back with a moto to my village, Koh Toi in time for work on Sunday morning. Well as I was strolling along the beach at my destination absorbing the beauty and distracted by the perfection of the last couple days my feet decided it would be a good idea to tread on a rusty crab cage buried in the sand, giving up much hope on walking even an hour back. LUCKILY FOR ME my savior, my protector, my Australian Knight in shining armor, my competitor (number 2 on trip advisor, ooo) MITCH from the Adventure boat tour rocks up with his weekly tour. So I hitchy hitched with Mitchy Mitch and his tour back down the coast. Ever been so happy for a coincidence in my life or to see my next door neighbor. A beautiful end to an amazing three days off and not too bad from three days without a watch, a phone, internet, and just 1L of fried rice and 2 bottles of water.

I’m amazed for starters at my current level of fitness and how much you learn when you are put out of your comfort zone. And it just reemphasizes my life motto of “if it’s not a good time, it’s a good story.”

*I am now officially phone and tabletless again.

Bongs on the beach