This past weekend was... beyond super fun. It was super DUPER fun (shout out to all my She's the Man fans). We, Sharon, Theary, Shan, and I, had a girls retreat/time-for-Mallory-and-Shanleigh-to-catch-up-on-sleep-because-you-both-look-like-zombies! It was awesome.
Saturday:
Saturday morning we all got up semi-early, ate a quick breakfast, and we were out on the road towards our three hour drive to Kep (/gaip/) and Rabbit Island. The car ride was pretty uneventful except for that Shanleigh and I became fluent in Khmer (/kmai/)...we learned like ten phrases thanks to Theary haha That really was fun, we felt quite accomplished, and extremely silly because some of the words are very hard to pronounce and we sounded like bouncing babbling babies (look at that alteration). Nevertheless, it was super fun hanging out with Theary and Sharon for a while.
When we finally arrived in Kep, we stopped at the seafood market. The market was this rather large area made up of a lot of different booths, a very long dock, and a large pavilion. At the different booths were various people selling all different types of seafood and knickknacks. Now, when I say different types of seafood I don't just mean like, "Oh lovely, crab, shrimp, fish, yum!!" I mean like, they had some very strange (from my American view) things like dried/floured squid and shrimp, grilled fish (okay, not that weird), grilled squid (okay, a little weird), and some very potent smelling fruit.
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| As Sharon was taking this photo, an Asian man walked over and stood next to Sharon and took this same picture on his own phone camera...yes, we stood there and smiled and I had no idea why he did that hahahaha |
Inside the pavilion were little stands where women were selling fresh seafood, literally fresh from the sea that was ten feet away. That's what the women were doing on the docks surrounding the booths and pavilion: wading into the rough waters and retrieving their cages full of crabs, giant shrimp, baby shrimp, and blue crabs. After browsing through the booths for a little while, the four of us meandered over to this pavilion and bought a large amount of crab with Theary acting as our haggler (thank goodness for her, Sharon knows some Khmer, but it is Theary's language and she is best at haggling). On the far side of the pavilion, there was this seemingly wall of pots with chimneys. They were actually cooking stations. We bought our seafood and then had it cooked for us right there two minutes later. You really can have your cake and eat it too! After buying some spicy sauce and loading up our haul, we climbed back into the car and made our way to the dock that would boat us over to Rabbit Island.
When we got there we ate our crabs (it was my first time to have to open those bad boys, but they were DELICIOUS and totally worth all the hard work) while we waited for the rain to stop and for some other people to share our boat with us so it wouldn't be so expensive.
After a while, it stopped raining and we were able to all climb into our boat and make the thirty minute ride to the island.
On the way there we were beyond giggly for three almost twenty-one year olds (Theary is twenty-one). We were laughing and making plans for when Theary would come to Texas and what all we would do together. We also teased Sharon that we were going to all sneak out and do something together one night. Theary started giggling mischievously and whispered to us, "Yes, we will sneak out..and go to the museum! hahahahahaha" She. Is. A. Gem.
We do plan to go to the museum, but I don't know if we will sneak out to do that haha We also want to take Theary to the movie theater because she has never been before!! So many plans, so many things to do with our new friend and family! Once we arrived to Rabbit Island, we had to walk through the island to the other side because that's where we were staying. So off we went! It truly was like a jungle. A jungle with a slight, weathered path. Shanleigh sustained a slight injury to the facial area due to a thorn tree accidentally smacking her in the face and making her bleed in a few spots. She was a trooper though. We came out of the jungle and I literally thought I had been transported to the shooting area of Lost. Sharon threatened to vote me off the island if I didn't behave. I think she meant survivor...but I didn't take any chances with my life ;)
After unloading in our freaking awesome hut, we went and explored the island a bit and played with our new friends, some of the dogs of the family that owned the area that we were staying in.
We ended up walking out on the dock and looking at the sea and the rain that was coming in fast. Then, me, being me, I dared Shanleigh to jump in. She said, "I will if you will." And of course I said, "Fine, let's do it." She wasn't bluffing. That meant I couldn't. So into the sea we jumped! This might becoming a new tradition for me...Croatia, now Cambodia...who knows where next?
After our leap of faith that ended up only being water up to our bellybuttons, we climbed out and we all ran to our cabin because it began to rain right then. The rest of the night consisted of showers, snack food for supper, and sleep!
~~~THE NEXT DAY~~~
Sunday:
Do you know the worst time of the day to awake after a lovely, restful night of sleep? 5:00am. You know what the worst thing to wake up to is? A rooster. I almost committed chickenicide a few times that weekend, but I held it together. It actually wasn't that awful because it got us started on our day early. Sunday we woke up, laid around, and got ready about seven and had breakfast at the host's house/restaurant. We had some pretty darn good fruit pancakes/crepes with Khmer coffee (which is my new favorite morning drink, I have no idea why I haven't thought to just drink coffee cold in the mornings instead of hot coffee, brilliant, simply SUBLIME).
Sunday it pretty much rained all day in varying degrees of heaviness so we stayed inside our hut and played Skip-Bo and ate banana chips UNTIL it cleared up for a couple hours.
We ran out of our hut to avoid becoming completely stir crazy and went swimming in the sea for about an hour and a half. I have a faint tan line from my chacos AND my swimsuit already! After swimming it started raining again, so back into our hut we ran and played some more Skip-Bo, snacked a bit more, and went to bed.
~~~THE NEXT DAY~~~
Monday:
The rooster never fails. We got up and packed to leave the island, walked back across the island and had to wade into the water to get to our boat (some of the other people with us were not so happy about that). Once we all piled in, we donned our rain jackets and buckled down for the bumpy, wet, slightly alarming, thirty minute boat ride back to Kep.
Theary was a little scared so we all sat next to her and held hands. After a while we made it back, safe and sound, crawled out of the boat and climbed into Sharon's car to head home. Before heading that way though, we went back to the seafood market, bought a large amount of seafood for our crew and for Theary's sister, Sreypo, bought some souviners from the booths, and went to visit and meet Theary's family in her village. They were all very nice and smiling at us the whole time. I wish I knew more Khmer so I could speak to them properly, but it was so fun getting to meet them. Then we bought some fried bananas (totally good for you, they're a fruit...) and made our way home.
That was pretty much our weekend in Kep! It was extremely fun and just the right amount of refreshment that Shan and I needed to get our bodies used to the twelve hour difference. It was also so much fun getting to spend time and bond with Theary and Sharon. They are pretty great :)
Hope you are all doing well! Please continue to keep us in your prayers!
<---(Goodbye!)--->
Stay classy.
Mallory Jean
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