Nightswimming (Khymer version)

(photos to follow) The last three days I have awoken to a (pre)dawn chorus of dogs, cockerel, numerous exotic birds and the whooping of gibbons. The jungle is never quiet – less so in the morning. I was staying at an eco-lodge on the banks of Taitai River, only accessible by boat. It’s off grid and not internet connected. People with Blackberries can pick it up but I had a couple of well- deserved ‘disconnected’ days.

Thursday I did a jungle trek. It was humid and hard work (ducking under all the fallen bamboos). A good experience but I think an overrated one. The jungle is best seen from the river (when trekking you are too deep in the forest to see the pattern). But we did see a red squirrel (like, scarlet red), a clearing with rapids that was full of many species of butterfly and – on the river journey home – a toucan. I would have seen none of those things without a guide by my side (well OK I found the butterflies by myself but the rest would have passed me by).

I was in the Cardamom Mountains – apparently the largest standing area of rainforest left in South East Asia. But it’s under threat. One massive hydro-electric dam has gone in – apparently eliminating the last remaining crocodiles in the river (not necessarily a bad thing for the development of river based tourism) and there are more planned. The high mountains are already quite deforested - where there are roads. It’s estimated that Cambodia has lost 25-30% of its forests in the past 25 years. The government just doesn’t have the capacity to patrol them and local officials are easily bribed. There’s a sort of domino effect. Thailand got (a bit) more serious about protecting it’s forests about twenty five years ago - so the loggers just moved next door to Burma and Cambodia. That’s how those who exploit natural resources operate – just find the place with least effective system of governance.

But the highlight of staying on the Taitai was unexpected and unannounced. The water is phosphorent at night. A couple of us went swimming at nine or so – kind of scary in a dark unlit river with no moon and just a couple of flashlights, but as soon as our pinkies hit the water little blue flashes of light started flashing off our toes. We soon jumped in and were giggling like kids and every stroke sent streams of blue particles darting through the water.

The extremely tall and leggy New York journalist who was my swimming partner asked if I minded if she skinny-dipped. How could I object? “As long as you don’t mind if I do”, I said. It was too dark to ogle her anyway. At some point I started singing ‘nightswimming’ – it felt so fitting – and when we got out of the water she told she had met Michael Stipe several times, as he is a patron of her magazine. We shared a long and deep ….conversation. We held hands walking back from the river to the bungalows and she went on straight to bed. I stayed on for a drink. My bungalow was two below hers on the hill. My last sight of the night was her standing naked with her back to the window (and the curtains open) still wet and dripping after the shower. Still phosphorent.

Bye bye Cambodia. Thanks for a great five weeks