With the breeze it was a lovely cool night’s sleep, still bloody boiling by Welsh standards though. The night time orchestra was joined by the sound of swaying plants scratching the tin roof and wooden walls of our hut. There were also some louder base bump additions that we tried to ignore. One full day left on the island and we are both feeling that the duration of our stay here was timed to perfection and we will leave before things start to go the way they did in the shinning. Island life will soon be replaced by a flurry of activity before we fly back home to a time and weather we seem to have forgotten.
After last night’s wine and cocktails it was definitely a two coffee morning so we headed to HQ and Em mixed it up with a hot coffee followed by an iced. We ate breakfast, omelette for Em (protein required after her Robinson Crusoe beach gym workout yesterday) and Cocco Mango Sticky rice for me (like a sweet rice pudding made with coconut milk and chunks of fresh juicy mango stirred in). We then retired to the hammocks to read and watch the local boys shimmy up giant palms (bare foot, no safety ropes, machete between teeth) to harvest coconuts. They disappeared into the canopy and you would hear a chop chop before a large coconut would fall almost whistling through its descent and thud into the ground as though they were made of lead, causing a vibration you could feel in your feet. You really would not want one of them on your head whilst sunbathing under a palm tree. There’s no internet here but if there was I would now be googling how many people died a year from falling coconut.
It’s was still breezey so we waited for the sea to settle before trying to refind the avatar clam to show Emma. She is not quite as excited as she should be despite two coffees. The nearest shop to us is about a 3 hour walk away. That means we do not have the temptation of junk food. Just the home cooked offerings of the beach bar. Mealtimes with no snacks, which feels good. You are properly ready for your meal having not subdued your hunger with processed crap. I swam (alone) back out to the coral reef to see if I could refind the avatar clam which was easy enough. I also swam a little deeper and discovered a legion of long spined sea urchins, sprinkled along the bottom like an army of underwater pokemon. Their long black spines (20 – 30 cm) protruding from their black spherical bodies. Gently Diving down and avoiding impaling myself I could see neon spots at the base of some of the spines…..again reminiscent of an alien lifeform.
Lying in the hammock it was strange to think it was the 9th December. I’d forgotten about Christmas so decided to plan Christmas dinner which obviously will have to be asian this year! I settled on spring rolls for starters followed by yellow curry, rice and pad Thai with an Asian salad. Dessert would have to be the coco Mango Sticky rice. If only we had a wok burner at home instead of an induction hob that would be perfect although the lack of a wok specific heat source could be used as an excuse if I mess anything up. I finally managed to tear Em away from her book (Jo Nesbo) to come and see the avatar clam and sea urchins. For some reason she was not as impressed as I had hoped. It seems that seeing the mighty great barrier reef in her earlier travels tarnished her ability to see the absolute beauty of a neon blue clam. We headed to HQ for lunch, passion and mango smoothie with mango salad for Em, tofu sandwich for me.
Back to the hammocks after lunch and I sat in the sea for an hour and penned a shoal of tiny baby fish in with my arms and watched them swim around, it’s amazing how they stick together and seem to turn at the same time it’s like they are magnetized together. I went to the bar and aquired us some recently descended coconuts that the Cambodian bar man savagely and accurately attacked with a machete cutting a chunk out of the top of each and then plopping a metal straw in to the surprisingly abundant refreshing juice. Hydration sorted.
Emma broke from her book for a quick beach gym session and we had a final dip in the sea before hastily retreating to the Khmer bathroom to ‘shower’ before the mozzies came out. They arrived slightly early resulting in a wild dance and dive into the parma violet mosquito net where we smidged up (mozzie repellent) and doused our previous nights bites in tiger balm. The burning lotion got transfered to my inner nose whilst absent mindedly scratching with a balm coated finger tip.
One mosquito made it inside our net and we hunted him down like a six legged bin laden, he put up a good fight but eventually met a very unvegan like demise. Just as we celebrated this also in a very unvegan way, a large dropping landed on the outside of the mosquito net directly above our heads. I shone a torch but could not find the depositor…..when I gave up we heard a laughing sound from the rafters, whatever it was it was mocking us. First shitting on us and then laughing when we failed to spot it or do anything about it. I tried to bat it (the dropping) out the window but it just kept bouncing back. Emma said I was just breaking it up and making it smaller and to be fair she had a good view as she was directly beneath it. Apparently unidentified dropping removal is definitely a Mike job and I was not being particularly effective at it. Is there any point in washing my hands in the Khmer bathroom or is everything in there covered in bacteria? I pointed out to Emma that if we didn’t have the net that turd could have landed in her open mouth whilst sleeping. She looked at me with those ‘thank you for that’ eyes. We relaxed in our parma violet prison cell, safe, for now. It didn’t last long, just as we were relaxed a giant beetle flew into the net next to our heads sending both of us scattering out of its way. Em said she needed a drink so we left for HQ.
Dinner was veggie summer rolls and yellow curry, HQ was busy tonight but with a chilled atmosphere. We spent the evening chewing the fat with an Australian traveller before retiring to the parma violet dome for another sweaty evening without Aircon or a fan.
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