Rabbit Island (Koh Thonsáy) is our destination this Christmas day, a small-ish isle 20 minutes boat ride from Kep. The weather, unsurprisingly, is gorgeous, but the sea is a little choppy and our long boat lists and pitches just slightly too much to not be worrying. But our chilled captain, rocking aviator sunnies, looks calm as can be so I stop worrying.
Bungalows line the beach on the side of the island where the long-boats from the mainland put in, and it's here I drink a coconut for my Christmas hangover. We decide to attempt to walk around the island, and yes, Patricia has new flip-flops for the occasion.
We walk along the narrow dirt path along the coast, past several grass huts where the local families live. Tables are covered in drying seaweed, and young men play volleyball on the dirt, old women collect limpets from the rocks, and the sea is lapis lazuli blue. We take a Christmas dip, an act that reminds me of my numerous Christmases spent swimming at the beautiful, beautiful Werri Beach. I lounge in the water, looking back at the island and its swaying palms and deep-green jungle, then close my eyes as I float on my back, sun shining through the red capillaries in my eyelids and I forget everything for a moment. This is my meditation, and I have done this ever since I was a small boy. For a few seconds I can escape into those illuminated crimson blood vessels and I could be anywhere, or nowhere, and I'm neither jubilant nor melancholy, neither self-reflective nor apathetic. I just float.
We soon learn from other walkers we meet that one can't safely walk all the way around the island. We either have to wade through waist-high water over rocks, or wait for low-tide. But we learn of one other option; we can pay a local islander to take us in his small longboat the 10 minute ride back to the bungalow beach. This we do, and it's worth the money, and this boat lilts much less worryingly.
I realise I'm starting to call people 'brother' and 'my friend' a lot more often now.
The rest of the afternoon I spend lazily in a hammock with a book before our boat ride back which is not rocky but I do become drenched by sea spray. But I smile through it, it's Christmas after all.
Out to our right I can see Vietnam, its coastline shooting photons at me, the only interaction I'll have with this country on this trip.
Yesterday we were looking for the party, a notion we've forgotten now after a long, tiring day. We have dinner and have an early night. I wish I were with family, but as far as Christmases go, you can get a lot worse.
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| This year's Christmas tree |
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| A local's hut, round the back of the island |
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| Drying seaweed |
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| A local's longboat |
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| Our personal ride back to the village |
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