Off to the Beach

View from back of the bus

Hard to believe, four weeks of school and a five day vacation.  A couple of weeks ago I saw it coming and looked around for someplace to go.  Thank you Dan for the guide book,  in it was a resort on an island in the Gulf of Thailand for $15 a day.  So I got a bus ticket from a travel agent, $5, and off I went.  This holiday is were everyone returns to their homeland (translate: hometown), so when I got to the bus station it was jammed and every bus was late.  All the announcement are in Khmer and I wondering if I just should have stayed home.  Anyway I found my bus, had a great seat, #3 and waited for the bus to fill.  A older French women  got on and had a fit because she too had reserved primo seat #3.  Well to placate her they asked me to move to the back, I said OK but I had to talk with the driver because I had to get out at Ou Chamnar, about half and hour before the bus's final destination of Sihanouk Ville.  The ticket guy seemed perfectly alright with me talking to the bus driver although I felt he didn't understand a word I had said.  So to the back of the bus now with extra people coming and sitting on stools in the isles.  I decided to wait two hours before I talked with the driver, Sihanouk Ville was about four hours away. 
     When I made my move it wasn't pretty, but this time aside from stools, people had strung baby hammocks across the isle and more than one sleepy head tilted into my path.  Excuse me, sorry sorry, I have to talk to the bus drive  Good natured tolerance would be how I would characterize the Khmer view of the maneuvers of a not so nimble big bald guy.  Making it to the front I could see some of the maneuvers of the driver, illegal and frightening would be the American view of his driving, but I felt that distracting him would make little difference, so I asked for help in talking with him.  Two older women seemed to understand that I was stressed out and when I showed them the map and my destination they told the driver I had to get off at Ou Chamnar.  He was in the middle of what I would call an licence revoking attempt to pass two large trucks but his response was that Ou Chamnar was an hour away.  Did he intend to stop?  I hope so.

Vannary

Instead of running the gauntlet to the back of the bus I got a stool and sat in the middle of row 2, just a hair breath from the French women (did she say merci?), I don't think so.  Well my little stool put me very close to passengers on my left and right.  To the right were two French speaking teenagers who, I came to surmise, were the spawn, once removed, of the root of my problem.  I am sure now that she never said merci.  To the right was a young Cambodian girl who smiled and said hello.  She asked me where I was going and I said Ou Chamnar, she smiled and said where after that.  I took out the guide book that Dan gave me and showed her the island and then a written description of the resort.  I asked her where she was going, to Sihanouk Ville.  She was spending the holiday with the two older women who helped me talk with the bus driver.  We introduced ourselves, her name was Vannary.  When I said mine was Mike, I said to myself what a stupid sound, many people here have a problem with Mike, (at school I'm Mr C) I think it is close to a curse word.  But what a nice name Vannary is.  Well she was just a delightful young women, a university student studying languages.  If I were twenty or thirty or forty years younger, but I am not.  We had funny little conversations about snow and Buddha and Jesus and she helped my with my cell phone which is set on something called intended text.  It seems to want to figure what I intend to say (most of the time I'm not even sure), like happy birthday and puts it in even if you wanted to say harpy eagle.  Anyway she showed me how to change that and asked me if I learned any Khmer, I said no, so she put a couple of greetings on the messages section my cell phone and told me to practice.  Good Morning, how are you? and something else.  Before I knew it the bus stopped at Ou Chamnar and off I went.  Good bye Vannary.
      As I am getting off the bus a Cambodian guy grabs my bag and runs toward his moto with it.  This is the way you get a customer, so on the back of his bike I went and off to the town where I would meet the boat.  I hoped he knew where I was going.  Across rice patties on a road of red mud, through tiny primitive villages I went.  The towns people stopped and stared, like they had never seem a pasty big bald guy before.  All the kids say hello and waved.  I felt like the pope and waved back," God bless you my children, pray that this clown takes me to the right place".

Shoving off from the fishing village

      Down a long hill we careened and at the bottom the fishing village; think not of a little town in Maine.  This place was a mess.  Roads just rutted and muddy, I would like to think that they tried to solidify the mud with plastic because plastic bags and more trash was everywhere.  As we came to the water the houses were on stilts, sitting above the most disgusting water I have ever seen.  I found my boat and welcomed saying goodbye.  The boat was big for just me and it motored through a channel in a mangrove swamp.   Fishing boats of similar design were moving all about.  Shortly the channel open up to the Gulf of Thailand.  Above  were Fishing Eagles, a new species, and terns that I could not identify.  Islands all around, some quite mountainous, I was later to learn that the ones to the south were in Vietnam.  Wow, I had never been so far away.  The boat paralleled the coast of Koh Thmay and all you could see is beach and forest.  The island is part of a national park.  After about an hour waves began to break on reefs and then the boat driver pulled into a cove.  The resort of Koh Thmei. Six cabins and a bar and restaurant.  Pretty cool.

The beach at Koh Thmay

     My days at the resort were really nice.  The water was beautiful and so warm and salty.  My bungalow was just one room with a bed and a mosquito net, a nice bathroom and a front porch.  The other five bungalows were occupied by an Australian family having a reunion.  They kind of stayed to themselves and me to myself.  I had a book that I would read at breakfast and dinner, both of which I lingered to finish up the last cup of coffee or glass of wine two hours later.  Sometimes the owners, Kivita or Michael, a German couple, would come over to keep me company.  During the day they would invite me on walks on trails they cut in the jungle.  She liked birds so we talked birds and showed me things she had seen like hornbills and something called a chough.  The jungle was so thick and even tough going on the trails because it was so wet underfoot.  The beach was beautiful and went for miles.  I used their kayak and went out into the channel looking for dolphins.  The sun was so hot and wetting myself with 85 degree water didn't help much.  No dolphins but we all saw them on the way back the fishing pier two days later.  I have to mention the price, door to door, everything included, tip and transportation: $120 for four days.  I would like to go back, but I am learning about other places in Cambodia that are just must sees, like the town of Kep, which the French made into a beautiful sea side village and of course, Seim Reap, where the temples of Anghor Wat are located. 
      Back to Phnom Penh by bus, much less eventful than my trip out.  The bus had a flat, which seemed to be the best of the possible things to go wrong.  Everyone got out of the bus to watch the driver and an assistant change the tire.  No one seemed annoyed or impatient, but maybe mildly entertained by the delay.  Back to school tomorrow, what are those kids names again?