Silk Island

9 April 2006

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon after Pratchum Nheat (of course everyday is beautiful in this country, you don’t have to think oh I hope it’s nice weather this weekend so we can go for a picnic…), I called Kesor to see if she wanted to go to Koh Dach, and island on the mekong where they produce silk. She said she didn’t have a moto but that friends of her with a car would want to go to, so I joined her in a restaurant where they were having lunch and we moved from there. It turned out her friends were actually these old guys she’s just met and didn’t seem to like very much, and then after driving a few miles in the right direction, they decided they didn’t want to go to Ko Dach any more and stopped in one of these restaurants where you sit in a hammac and they serve you food and drink all afternoon. We didn’t know quite what to do. I thought it’d be rude to leave but Kesor didn’t seem to care so we left and tried to find a motodop that would take us there. On the boat to the island Kesor started chatting with this girl who was on the way to Koh Dach to visit her family and friends, as she does every Sunday. Her name was Phal and she said she’d take us around the island, so we ditched the motodop and went around with her instead. That was really cool because it turned out into being a real Koh Dach experience. First we went to see her aunt who had this little farm. We ankouille legned there, they asked me loads of question on my family, my boyfriend, my salary and my rent. Then me and kesor walked around the area, played with the kids and spoke with the villagers. Then Phal took us to see her friend who just had a baby. We sat there in her house for a while and played with the baby. After a while we went to the end of the island where there’s a beach. We rented a little hut, bought food from walking fruit sellers and chilled there for a while. So all in all, we did a lot of chilling. But it was chilling Cambodian style and I really enjoyed it. You can just invite yourself in people’s house, talk about nothing really important and then move on. It’s really fun. I could do that for days…