Man-o-gram #19

Shaken awake early morning today as the heavens opened. Thats the forecast for this week above. White flashes in the dark followed instantly by eardrum splitting thunder. The place shook like an earthquake. Astounding that an explosion in the sky, sound waves, can literally shake the earth, it’s fixtures and fittings.

Never known thunder to be so close and aggresive. The animals started braying – dogs/cows/geese/ducks/frogs/fckn parrots … like a panic at the disco on the ark.

Monsoon is here. Temps are down but humidity has spiked and it’s pouring buckets.

Getting off the ferry yesterday was a circus, a deckhand scrambling round in barefeet more or less tieing the boat to the wharf, then, no gangway, tides out, monkeying yourself and stuff up onto the boards. Get caught between the tyres lashed wharfside and the moving boat, well thats your problem.

I’m holed up at Kaoh Touch Beach here on the island of Koh Rong. It’s only half all go at the mo, shoulder season they call it.

I’ve decided to hang here for a week, must be the Waiheke in me. I’m staying at the Sovanphum Guesthouse, $US55 for the week. It’s perfectly krusty round the edges, room leaks a bit over the bed 🤣 – a great balcony looking over the beach with a small backpackers bookcase. There’s just one book in english, a well thumbed copy of Jonny Wilkinsons biography. That’ll do.

Maybe I’ll learn to play the instruments I brought with me: 1 x ukelele, 1 x tin whistle, 1 x Xaphoon (like a small clarinet) & 2 x harmonica’s I realised a day or two in, as we often do, I packed too much shit, I’ve got too much on my back. So my clothes are gonna have to go.

There’s a handful of foreigners here, travellers like me and a couple of european dudes running a small bakery – as in bread. Yus. Three weeks in the land of rice and I realise I’m gluten dependent. Baguettes and pastries, the french colonial influence, today they are closed but I can see myself there tomorrow, and the next day.

Come lunchtime a break in the rains, so I rent myself a scooter (black one this time). I discovered an interesting frenchman Danny who has an off-grid place to stay and eat in the remote north of the island. You can only access Lonely Beach by boat, or several km’s of mud track. Throttle on and my Honda 125 is sliding round like a greased pig.

It is stunningly beautiful here and when i told him he had an idyllic place, he replied “I don’t have the place, it has me” He, his dogs, a local crew, the amazing beach. Light years from downtown Phnom Penh.

Down in the south, Sarah’s from the UK and runs the Beachwalk Resort, an entirely up market entity with swimming pool and deck loungers. “Been here 12 years, “I love it, Cambodian people are amazing”.

Today I poked my scooter into stilt houses of materially poor fishing village’s and several of the resorts that are out of my budget. A beer in each for research 🤡… and you know me, I’m speed dating anyone within 5 mtrs, “who are you, what’s your gaffe ?”

Two nights ago in Kampot, I had a great chat with Simi. He’s Tongan, unmistakably so, I’d spotted him on a scooter in the market area and thought – Ha ! Pacific brother. When he discovered I was a muso, he told me I should get here, there’s a playing circuit and soloists especially are earning decent coin comparative to cost of living. You just need a guitar, spare strings a couple of leads, a mic … and a scooter. His mates strap their guitars to their backs, scooter all round the show and plug in to existing systems in bars. Likely date-stamping western memories to ageing Barry’s. Same same, but ya never know.

When you’re travelling, when the rose tinted glasses are sitting snug, it does become a thought … could I live here ?

Colin from Essex is now the handyman at one of the backpackers I stayed in on the mainland. He got caught here locked down in covid, his visa got extended and now he’s permanent. He told me to look up. His proudest work in this aircraft hanger of a backpackers bar, two huge fans with blades that look like they’ve come off an Iroquois chopper. Bad metaphor for a people that had hell rain from the sky. “Stuck that one up just usin’ a ladder, nearly done me back, got some scaff in for the uvvva one …”

And the Belgian woman whose honda tows her cart of pastries and bread to the same street spot in Kampot every morning.

What you can’t tow with a Honda 125 in this country you don’t want to know.

There must be a unique appeal in living away from your homeland. Look at Waiheke, half you louches are from somewhere else 😅.

I had a brilliant opportunity once to work abroad but didn’t take it. Good story. In my 20’s I grew way too much weed to smoke myself. A guy came round to my place with a rugby sock jammed with cash, a big smoker I understand. That sock of cash went straight over the counter of a flying school and next thing I knew I had my pilots license. I don’t believe I encountered any boys in blue, indeed I was free as a bird. Next thing, I took a term off teaching to work on my commercial pilots quals. Passed everything, so far so good.

But a sock of cash only goes so far. I got stuck a few grand short of completing my flight time to become commercial pilot ready. That’s when I got a call from a guy with a small airline in Sierra Leone. He’d heard of my situation via a family contact that worked in Liberia, and offered me an opportunity there and then flying small cesna’s round the Ivory Coast. But I’m not fully qualified I said. “No problem, we’ll sort that, how good are you on STOL?” (Short take-offs and landings) Thanks to an ace instructor who taught me how to fly like riding motocross, I was pretty schmicky. Cheers Neal.

“When can you get here?”

I never went. Imagine if I had … but then I wouldn’t have my amazing older daughter or any of my children/grandchildren for that matter. Fork in the road moments.

My sisters and I grew up nomadic, dad getting transferred all the time, another small town somewhere in NZ every two years, mum would say “ that’s nice dear” and start packing the Tea chest. It was lonely but prepped us with chameleon colours to handle changeable situations.

So what if I was to upsticks now, start a whole new scene based on a random opportunity. Could I do it? Would I do it? Could I be away from my family and community who are all NZ based, with trips home ? Assuming we don’t all get locked down again …. Hard one. It would have to be mission based save the world stuff where you just Can’t Say No.

Till next time :)