After breakfast at
the Vista restaurant (where we once again watched little shoals of
fish leaping from the water en masse – there's a marine reserve
around the island and a controlled fishing zone covering the wider
area surrounding Koh Rong, which is reflected in the abundance of
fish in the area), I dropped the girls off at guest services so they
could do a special treasure hunt around the island. I then went back
to the villa to prepare for my rainforest walk on Koh Rong.
Accompanying me on the walk were a pair of honeymooners from Brazil
via Singapore and the resort's watersports team – a young woman
from the Czech Republic and a young Cambodian guy. And we were joined
in the boat over by Bradlie, who was off for a freediving lesson with
his South African friend.
After making the
short crossing to the island, we walked through the resort's staff
village and then out into a flat, scrubby area, where there were a
few small wooden shacks – outliers from the fishing village. After
a while, we entered the forest, following a small track up and into
the rainforest. Not long after that, we reached the waterfall, where
we all quickly stripped off and jumped in for a swim. The water was
wonderfully clear and refreshingly cool after the warm ocean water
that we had been swimming in since we reached Southeast Asia. After
some rolls and other snacks for lunch, we all go dressed again and
walked back down to the boat. As we passed though the village school
on the way back down we came across a large group of female student
volunteers from Guildford who were painting the main school building.
As I walked along
the pier back at the resort, I spotted Kate and the girls lazing
about on the hanging beds at the Vista bar, so I went over and joined
them for a drink. As we left, we ordered a pizza for delivery to the
villa and went back there, and it arrived not long after we did.
At 3pm we all hopped
into another boat across to Koh Rong for a group village visit. We
were joined by an English family who arrived on the island the same
day as us. They had asked to take part in a Buddhist blessing
ceremony, so we all joined in as well. After walking through the
village, we all filed into the pagoda (just a simple wooden building,
not the tiered tower the word usually refers to) and then kneeling
before a pair of orange-robed monks – one old, one much younger.
The older monk splashed us repeatedly with holy water while he and
the other monk intoned blessings in a nasal drone. The pagoda was
home to numerous tiny malnourished kittens, most with weeping eyes
and prominent ribs, and one of them kept rubbing itself against
Kate's feet during the ceremony. When the blessings were done, we all
took turns to hobble over on our knees to have little red plaited
string bracelets tied around our wrists (except that they ran out, so
Kate and the English family's dad missed out). As we passed through
the school, the girls from Guildford were teaching some of the
students the English words for various parts of the body.
Back at Song Saa, we
went for one last snorkelling session. Although the water was much
clearer this time, we didn't really see anything new. Once we had
dried off, we all went for cocktails at the Vista bar as the sun went
down. Having sampled widely across the cocktail menu, Kate and I have
decided that we're both fans of the Long Island ice tea, so we
ordered one each. Our dinner location for tonight was out on a little
stone pier next on the main wooden pier. The sunset put on a
spectacular show for us, with broad brush strokes of orange fire
sweeping across the darkening sky. It felt like a fitting farewell
for us on our last night on Song Saa.
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