Travel Diaries: Cambodia pt.2
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MEET THE TEAM
Mia Reeves - Chief Executive Officer
Eden Kaye-Priestley - Operations Manager
Tanya Hahl - HR Executive
Helena Schuttloffel - Area Manager
Matt Jobson - Treasurer
Kai Austerfield - Creative Director
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Perhaps a rather crude way to start this diary entry, but if you don’t laugh you’ll cry. I don’t know what we’ve eaten, but we’ve all suffered immensely… it’s all shits and giggles until someone giggles and shits.
Our third day on the tropical island of Koh Rong was spent at sea. We paid $20 each for an eight-hour private boat trip, operated by two Cambodian sailors, armed with a cooler full of beer and whiskey. Myself, Mia, Eden, Tanya, Helena, Matt, Josh and Dylan set sail at midday, and dropped the anchor about half an hour into the journey. Our Cambodian friends handed us some snorkelling gear, and the gang promptly jumped off the boat into the water to see what fish we could find. Despite being a big fan of the ocean, the thought of fish swimming around my feet disconcerts me, and if anything touches me, I tend to start screaming. Nevertheless, I strapped on my goggles and entered the water to join the others, but after just a few minutes we all found ourselves back on the vessel, tending to an injured Eden (again).
She had cut her foot on a large rock just below the surface, and was now pouring out with blood which was discolouring the sea water around us. It was like when one pours a drop of Robinson’s blackcurrant cordial into a pint glass full of tap water, and given that we were reluctant to recreate a scene from Jaws, we clambered her back on board. The sailors couldn’t have been more helpful, although used some interesting medical tactics to suppress the wound. They broke apart two cigarettes (which I reimbursed) and patted the tobacco around the cut, presumably to soak up the excess and prevent her from bleeding out. They then wrapped up her foot with a bin bag and some tissues, and gave her a nod as if to say “there ya go, good as new.”
With Eden’s foot now empty and flaccid like a saggy, wrinkly, neglected balloon which has lost the majority of its air, we set sail again. We arrived at another desolate part of the sea and were given make shift fishing rods, reminiscent of the diabolo toy which engulfed children’s free time back in the late 2000s. A sharp hook pierced a piece of squid at the end of the wire, and we were instructed to spin the axle into the sea and wait. Matt was the first to catch something, obviously, but Helena, Tanya and Mia were not disgraced and also caught some fish of various sizes. The Cambodian pair managed to catch a medley of marine life, and kept them in a small bucket on board the boat ready to be barbecued.
Our sailors used some plastic bottles as firelighters to keep the barbecue from going out, which can’t have been healthy, but the chicken legs they served us were still relatively tasty. After lining our stomachs with plastic infused meat and soaking up some of the beer and jäger we’d consumed thus far, we stopped near the shore on the tranquil west side of the island for an hour or two, which gave us ample opportunity to swim in the shallow, clear water. Whilst we were performing circus tricks by getting each other on our shoulders, we spotted another boat just a hundred yards away, boasting a top deck which people were jumping off from. It looked like great fun, so we swam over and decided to stealthily try our luck by boarding and taking advantage of the diving platform. Nobody noticed we weren’t part of the entourage, and when Mia and I reached the top deck, I was thrilled to overhear a familiar Scouse accent. It was Ste from Walton who I’d met just the day before, and we had another good chat. We also bumped into Cathal, last seen in Kampot a few days prior, in a bizarre mash-up of characters.
Ste had a little swim over to our boat, and talked Liverpool FC with Josh Gal, who is also a big supporter. It began to look as if Ste’s boat was leaving without him, so he rushed off, front-crawl style, and we bode him a fond farewell. A couple of hours later, now post-sunset, we also said goodbye to our sailors, who dropped us off back at the east side beach on Koh Rong. We grabbed some terrible burgers when we got back to shore before calling it a night.
The next couple of days were rather quiet. A haircut from the island’s only barbershop and a power-cut after a storm was about as exciting as it got, but we were all enthused by the impending arrival of an old cast member - Jannik. We’d met this German hunk back in Pai, and had unfortunately gone our separate ways. However, we’d stayed in touch throughout our time apart, and he had spontaneously decided to come and spend the last couple of nights of his trip on the island, before flying back to Hamburg. It was great to see him again, albeit without his sidekick, Jonas. By this point, we’d ditched the microwave-like tent and upgraded to a bungalow with air conditioning and a resident gecko, which was a welcome change.
We spent one of the days with Jannik sunbathing on our private beach, and were joined by some adorable little Cambodian boys. I introduced them to Snapchat filters, giving them bald heads and moustaches, which they found hilarious. Their cute, high-pitched giggles were infectious, and we had a lovely little couple of hours playing with them. Later that day, we sank a few cans with Jannik, who introduced us to some ruthless German drinking games, before reluctantly saying “auf Wiedersehen”. It was sad to say goodbye to him - he’d been an integral part of our journey, but all good things must come to an end. He’s someone we’ll definitely be staying in touch with, and there might even be a Hamburg edition of the diary in the pipeline…
It wasn’t long after that we left the island ourselves. We boarded the boat from the Koh Rong pier and made our way back to Sihanoukville, where we would board a sleeper bus bound for Siem Reap, home of one of the world’s wonders - Angkor Wat. However, there was another world wonder we were much more enthralled about seeing, it was a person, and that person was Bradley Sinclair George. Freshly out of surgery on his broken ankle after falling off his moped in Pai, and subsequently having to travel back home, he was recovering at a rate of knots, and decided to fly back out to pick up where he left off. The bus journey was comfortable and pleasant, and I spent the majority of it watching the Greatest Show on Turf - the Cheltenham Festival. Never have I wanted to be back home as much as I did at that point, donating my hard earned wages to bet365 in an old man’s pub watching the racing with Simo. But, instead, I had to settle for watching a pixelated opening day on my phone, whenever my data decided to work.
We met up with Brad at the Onederz Hostel in Siem Reap, for a long-overdue reunion. Christmas had come early, reuniting with both Jannik and Brad in the space of a few days, and we celebrated in style that night on Pub Street. During the day, though, we went to Apopo Visitor Centre - a charity which breeds and trains a certain species of rat to sniff out land mines which are still scattered across the Cambodian countryside, and still denote often to this day. In the last couple of weeks alone, two children under the age of five were killed in an explosion involving a land mine in one of the rural areas, and such events spur the charity on to carry out their groundbreaking work. The process has been so effective in fact, that there is even talk of implementing something similar in Eastern Ukraine. It was all very impressive, despite my hatred of rats, but I’m not going to go into too much detail - more information about their work can be found here. At the end of the tour, we were given the opportunity to hold one of the rats, which everyone but myself accepted.
As previously stated, we spent the evening on Pub Street, where we laughed relentlessly with Brad in between races at Cheltenham. It will come as no surprise to anyone to find that I went to bed earlier than the rest of the group, but was glad of it the next day when they all woke up feeling like death warmed up. Particularly Mia, who had developed a merciless illness overnight, causing her extreme stomach pain, and cementing her as the CEO of the RSA. That morning I spend the day studying Cheltenham form, despite not being able to have a bet due to being abroad. Whilst doing so, I remarkably bumped into Cathal, again, after last seeing him in the middle of the sea off Koh Rong, a fifteen hour drive away, just a couple of days before. A fitting encounter, I thought, given his carbon-copy interest in horse racing. We chatted extensively, mainly about horses, but also about his hobbies and interests, and got to know each other a bit better. He was flying to Singapore in a couple of days, and it was unlikely we’d see each other again, but he was a really nice lad who I’m hoping to stay in touch with.
After deciding to skip Angkor Wat due to it’s extortionate ticket price, and the fact that Mia was fighting for her life, we spent the rest of the day relaxing at the hostel. At around one o’clock, we had to bid another emotional goodbye to Brad, as we were flying to Phuket, Thailand that evening. He was doing our Cambodia route backwards; Koh Rong, Kampot, Phnom Penh, but suggested with a certain degree of promise that there was scope for him to meet us on one of the Thai islands, or in Bali, Indonesia, later this month.
We jumped into a taxi with the chattiest driver in Cambodia, and made the hour-long journey to Siem Reap airport. Mia inconveniently had to rush to the toilet every fifteen minutes before boarding the plane; at the check-in desk, at immigration, at security, the stomach cramps got the better of her. It set a sour tone, could there be anything worse than an impending plane journey when one feels like she did? We thought not, and all worried what the flight had in store.
The airline had sat us apart, and I took my seat a few rows away from my dishevelled fiancé, and hoped for the best. I was sat next to a family of three - a South African chap, his Cambodian wife, and their extremely well-behaved two-year-old boy, who I sparked a friendship of sorts with. I got chatting to Eric, the father, whilst his son kept handing me his toy cars to play with. Eric was in his mid forties, lived in South West London with his family, and spent his free time metal detecting on the shores of the River Thames. We spoke for the entirety of the journey, he educated me on apartheid, and showed me photos of what treasures he’d discovered whilst pursuing his metal detecting hobby. Some of the stuff he’d found was remarkable - Roman coins, clay pipes, even an old hand gun! He also told me about a time he thought he’d found an unexploded Second World War bomb, and sent the Metropolitan Police into meltdown. I forget what it actually was - but it certainly wasn’t a bomb. It was all very fascinating, to the point where I’m considering doing a course in archaeology when we get back to the UK.
He’d also worked for an NGO, something which I’ve always considered getting into, and had he also had a keen interest in photography. We chatted tennis, football, mortgages, conflict journalism, and he showed genuine curiosity when I informed him of my interests. He was a great guy, made the plane journey go quite quickly, and distracted me to the point where I’d completely forgotten to keep an eye out on the toilet to see if Mia was having any issues. He made sure to note down the diary link before we said goodbye too, so, Eric, if you’re reading, I hope you’re well.
Cambodia had been a great experience, though somewhat anti-climactic. I was excited to be back in Thailand, to cover the southern part of the country and all it’s beautiful islands. As the plane began it’s descent, I pondered what the next few days would have in store…