Island in the sun

January 5^th
Today my journey began with a 4 hour drive to the town of Sihanuokville, Cambodia. Scenery consisted of poor villages or trash littered countryside to stare at. Everywhere you look there is trash. Once we had to veer right to avoid hitting some cattle on the road. Our destination was renting a motorized canoe and touring the Ream National Park on the way to a private beach. The park covers 210 hectares and is home to around 155 species of birds and mammals including dolphins and mangrove tree farms. We saw white herons, colorful birds, little fishes, and jumping fish of some sort. The water was all murky and dirty, I didn’t think that reaching a swimmable beach was really possible in the near future.

I fell asleep on the canoe, woke up an hour later, and saw it most definitely was! It was an island called Koh Thmei, including a white sandy shore and clear water! A wild dog came to greet us on the docks. There were no tourists at all. Us four and our two guides packed a picnic for lunch which was a fun treat eating on the beach. After lunch Russ and Peggy made a sand castle and Kristina and I collected a bunch of unique shells. Kris and I also played in the warm bath water for a bit, jealous? Haha.

We then took a relatively short hike through the rainforest-like scenery on the island. It was awesome, I love nature, except when it bites me (score: 6 bug bites). There were all sorts of trees and foliage including an exotic tree with orange bark, massive termite hills, interesting plants and flowers, creepy spiders, and massive interwoven roots everywhere. I really felt like I was in a rainforest when it started to lightly rain on us half way through our hike. The trees created a canopy for the most part. Locus buzzed extremely loud and clear. The trail submerged into a coastal village. The kids ran to say hi and some just looked at us with a smile. This village had their own school which was quite primitive. Many of them were fishermen/women.

Our canoe driver met us at the end of our hike and road us back to town. The weather was a bit overcast and warm; it was a perfect day for everything we did. On our way back we witnessed a kings fisher ascend toward the water, lunge, and dash away with an eel! The eel rapidly squiggled around in its talons as the hawk flew into the trees. We all thought this was way cool! During our ride both ways the water was always perfectly glassy, ideal for water skiing or wakeboarding for sure. At one point the driver needed to refuel and turned off the boisterous motor and we rocked back and forth in silence. It was a serene moment to take in. please visit a gain, thank you! Hahaha.

After our adventure we checked into our hotel, which is not my favorite at all, then proceeded to eat dinner along the river at a delectable sea food restaurant. Kris and I ordered crab and toward the end of dinner Kris was still cracking away at her crab. The waitress saw this, came over, and started cracking the crab for her. Hahaha. It was the funniest thing to watch! Apparently she wasn’t fast enough or qualified for the task. This had all us laughing.