Cambodia: Day 6

The banana and the flower

After a disturbed sleep last night in which i continuously woke up with images of burn victims and dead bodies, we awoke early and did yoga in the soft light of the 6:00am sun. Sun salutations to stretch out stiff limbs and a variety of crea’s to eradicate the ego and jolt the system into ‘awake mode’. A yummy breakfast of tea, a banana shake and a  tomato and choritzo omelette set us on our way for the four hour bus ride to Sunhuk-ville. A much awaited break by the coast after a rather intense few days of culture and history. Ironically the tuk tuk driver the hotel did end up choosing for us, was of course the one that I’d attempted to rid ourselves of last night. His ominous face smiled goodbye as we hopped onto our bus, a minute before it began to move.

Basic living

Cambodian poppy music is playing in the background at the moment. It slightly reminds us of the loud revolutionary music that they used to blast during the executioning of the Cambodians at the killing fields that we were able to listen to on our audio device; the loud revolutionary music was blasted from speakers that were placed on ‘the magic tree’, ‘magic’ music that was supposed to deafen ears to the screams of their friends and family. The music was combined with the ongoing hum of the truck motors that brung in and out prisoners for execution – the thought makes me feel uncomfortable. I slowly nodded off and before I knew it we’d arrived.

On our way up the beach

We tuk tuk’d passed ‘happy herb pizza’ joints and ‘mushroom point’ with psychedelic pictures of mushrooms and trippy colours all over the place. We finally got to ‘Otres beach’, in ‘Suhanukville 2’, basically meaning totally out of the way of everything, on the second stretch of beach, away from tourists and loud music. We’re staying at an eco-lodge called golden sunset, no other tourists are here right now and we’re locking away all our valuables in a wooden box under the mattress that we’re sleeping on in open air huts 5m from the sea, a.k.a directly on the beach. It’s wild here, a really homely vibe, we ate home made chicken noodle soup for lunch.

Yoga outside our hut

To properly relax into the beach vibe we know so well, I lit a lovely joint (the windy weather not making the rolling of this joint easy in any way) and mum and I slowly connected over the hundreds of stories of her youth... funny ones about being lost in remote area’s of Croatia or mombassa, the notting hill carnival when she was little, her friends acid trips in Chiswick park and shrooms and joints on beaches in Thailand, I learnt of her old-school introduction into the music industry and someone's acceptance into it based on their ability to roll a good joint. Sad stories of friends that had gone wayward because of too much coke, or become addicted to heroin in Cambodia (when it was so corrupt the police were all dealing due to lack of money). So many stories about people i’d known or met growing up but never realized they were druggies or alcoholics, I suppose as a child you don’t realize so much if you’re not aware, she told me she’d made a point of keeping me away from all of that - an important message indeed. It's sad really, I feel more sympathy towards them than anything, the responsible image of an 'adult' that you see when you're younger had now turned into them looking more like lost children than anything. I feel more understanding now towards drugs, as a method of experimentation, to have fun but not let yourself become controlled or taken over by them – having the same ultra-sensitive constitution as mum really aids that.

White sand, coconuts and coffee

 We drank pastisse, I had another joint and we strolled over to another of the mere 6 huts on the beach. This place was definitely the most lively, with about 7 other guests compared to just us two at ‘golden sunset’. We ate our hearts out as the muchies took over, having already munched absent mindedly through a pack of Pringles (the good/ bad thing about not being at home is you eat whatever’s around you when you’re hungry, but if there’s nothing to eat, you just do without, in this case i finished off the muesli bars and Pringles pretty damn fast.) For dinner I ate a delicious burrito with grilled beef, tortilla, salsa, yogurt, salad and Mexican rice. Mum had fresh battered fish and wedges. And for pudding, ah for pudding, home-made brownies and fresh vanilla ice cream. We definitely felt it as we walked back down the beach – having no trouble getting to sleep with the lul of the waves and the soft wind.


Recipe of the day: Mexican beef burrito's
http://www.donmiguel.com/mexican-recipes/burritos/beef-burritos-recipe.php