Happy endings: Day 21 (24/12): Kep, Cambodia

Day 21 (24/12)

Oh my, it is quite stunning here. From the balcony of the hotel I can see the moderate mountain range which stretches out behind the town, and in the other direction the sparkling sea. Marissa is feeling sickly, so Patricia and I go together for a hike in the national park, in those hills which greet me this morning.

We walk down the dusty road a few hundred metres, and turn up into a gradual incline, past some fancy guest houses, and eventually reach a little hut which marks the entrance to the national park. To my surprise, we're given an official ticket stub when we pay the entrance fee, and it all seems legit; no lining of pockets, no inflated price. As we walk into the cool forest there are also informative signs and maps, and it is all well organised. I am impressed.

I love flora. I really do. I like looking at, picking, smelling, feeling, and reading about plants and what they do, and why they are the way they are, and where they're from, and what you can do with them. This passion of mine brought me to the point where, in Latvia and to a lesser extent in the British Isles, I felt familiar in nature, in the fields and forests. I could name most pants and trees and the more well known fungi, and had a reasonable understanding of their practical and medicinal benefits. But here, on this walk, I feel lost and slightly uncomfortable. I don't know anything here. If I do recognise something, it's probably only in its resemblance to something I know. The plants and trees and fungi in this environment are pretty and curious, but this experience is lacking the beauty I find in the practical value of flora, in how we can benefit from them. Is that lantana?

I am wearing my hiking sandals, and Patricia only has her flip-flops ('thongs' if you're from Australia, but I'm learning to avoid this term while travelling for obvious reasons). It's not a tough walk at all, but it is eight kilometres, eight kilometres on a gravel path is a big ask of flip-flops.

We're walking along and “Oh no!”. The plug on one breaks.

We stand there for a bit, look at the broken piece of rubber, look at the path ahead, realise how far we have yet to walk, look at each other with that what-do-we-do-now? widening of the eyes and furrowing of the brow.

I have some electrical tape in my bag, and Patricia thinks of taping a small stick to the thong part of the flip-flop, but that comes apart after 15 metres.

I rustle through my bag and find the crappy string bracelet a beach-peddler tied on my wrist at Otres beach. My mind kicks into MacGyver mode. I remember I have a sharp pair of tweezers in my first-aid kit, and get to work fashioning a temporary fix for the flip-flop which I hope will last the 4 kilometres we have yet to trundle.

It's a success. I'm proud, and in the mean time, while having stopped for ten minutes to deal with the crisis, we see a gigantic centipede scurry across the path. “You see” says Patricia wisely, “if it didn't break, we wouldn't have seen that!”.

We continue. It's cool up here in the shade of the forest trees, and seriously hot whenever we emerge into a clearing. We hear the rustle of forest birds, even catch a glimpse of a couple of them, and see a beautiful red squirrel scamper along a branch above our heads. And Patricia's footwear are going strong.

We pass the exit to the park, and walk through a more residential area. But there's no-one here, it's quiet except for a few cattle chewing cud. We walk past more shells of colonial villas, and eventually to the main road, which here is a six-lane newly-paved motorway hostin the occasional scooter whizzing by, recycling bins every 10 metres, and gigantic government buildings. This must be corrupt money. There are bars along the edge of the water with dozens and dozens of hammocks, but no tourists. Strange.

We walk past the big crab which is perched out in the water, and into the main part of town. A swim on the artificial beach (sand was carted in to create it, hoping it would attract tourists) is mildly disappointing, but for someone who loves to swim, anything will do.

A tuk-tuk takes us to the market, where we buy cheap fruit and a few other things, and we're back home to rest for a little.

Oh yeah, I nearly forgot, it's Christmas eve. This time last year I was in Latvia enjoying the charm of a white Christmas. Now I'm on the water's edge in Cambodia, eating a sublime dish of Kampot-pepper crab (worth the trip to Kep just to eat this, really), and enjoying the company of Patricia and Marissa, two other Christmas orphans. I don't buy into the Christian mythology of this time of year, but I do believe it's an important secular tradition, one which brings fond memories and nostalgia for childhood and a great love for family. I'm hoping this time next year I'll be arguing with mum over who gets the last piece of crackling, getting my brother out one-hand-one-bounce in the backyard, and having a cold one with the old man.

We're keen to find “where the party is at” in Kep on Christmas. We have a drink at one of the more lively bars in the crab market area, play some billiards on a wonky table with locals, and befriend a young Canadian couple. A tuk-tuk driver tells us about a place where the party is at, apparently, and we haggle out of him a cheap price to take all five of us there, wait for us, and take us back. A scooter with two young guys on it follows us the whole 10 minute journey, pulling up next to us and waving. We arrive at the bar, which is dead and owned by the same person who owns the bar we were just at, of course. But we stay for a drink.

The two young guys turn out to be the tuk-tuk drivers ex-students. The driver teaches French at a local school and at an orphanage, where he was the first orphan, and these two are also orphans who have come from Phnom Penh – where they have now found successful jobs – just to spend time with their beloved teacher on their holiday. Menassy, the driver/teacher, tells us he has to drive tuk-tuks in the evening because his fourth child has just been born, and he needs to make more money. Patricia, Marissa and I all look at each other and immediately feel bad about haggling earlier over 50 cents with this lovely man. Later, we hand him a ten dollar note to redeem our consciences.

Marissa and Patricia go back to the hotel and the Canadian couple and I go back to the original bar for a few more drinks. We end up dancing ecstatically to terrible music, stopping a local French guy, who was incredibly drunk and barely able to walk, from riding home on his motorbike (which fell on him as he tried to start it), learning what I can only describe as the Khmer Nutbush, and forgetting for a moment we're far away from our loved ones on Christmas.