Bamboo Island: I Think I Just Walked into a Poster

Today I felt like I walked right into one of those gorgeous palmtree laden island posters I grew up lining my bedroom walls with. The ride from Sihanukville was incredibly bumpy, and water kept splashing into the boat, which worried me a bit about my things, but all was good, and none of it fell into the water as someone took it to land and tossed it in the sand. Looking around I couldn't believe the beauty of this place. This is an island of my dreams and it didn't seem real to be here.

Striaght in front of us is a hexagon-shaped lounge/bar/restaurant littered with hammocks and those semi-circle chairs and to the left are about 10 bungallows, each with it's own hammock or two. There's people just laying back, sipping beers or gizzling water, most reading books, some chatting.

I'm immediately greeted by a guy and a girl who don't seem to have a care in the word and who've been staying here for quite some time and don't have any intention of leaving any time soon. After just a minute of talking to them I decided that I needed to stay at least two nights, so I sorted that out and jumped right into the island life...doing just about nothing; it's amazing!

Now, I'm usually a pretty busy girl and just sitting around feels a bit odd. I walked around and explored with a guy my age I met on the boat from Holland. Turns out that he graduated last year with the same psych degree, took 6 months to travel, and is even getting the same master's in organizational psychology that I am...what are the odds! It wasn't long before it started raining, which here means that your clothes are soaked within a minute and the only watning sign is a looming black mass of cloud coming towards you about 15 minutes before the downpour.

For the next two days I read (finishing the entire book of Dear John), drank beers and fruit smoothies, and went swimming every time it started to rain, among others of course.

I hung out with Duncan and went swimming with him in the middle of the night to see the phosphorous in the water glow when you move around in it, which was way cool-almost looks like you have fireflies shooting from your fingertips. Smiling and laughing we made our way in the dark back to the thatched-roof dorm where I would fumble with my mosquito net and crash happily for the night.