Bat Country
Rain is falling for the first time in two weeks and Ryan and I are tent bound on the Southwest shore of Koh Rong island, 45 kilometers off the Cambodian mainland. No sunset tonight, just a flyover of thousands of giant bats and now this building storm.
We’re really out there, camped in the middle of a sweeping eight kilometer curve of totally undeveloped white sand beach. The bats that flew overhead were big ones, with bodies the size of footballs and three-foot wingspans. We have one bottle of water, a few handfuls of cockleshells, a package of ‘Best Tasted’ Vietnamese instant ramen noodles and a whole case of Flying Horse Brand La La Choco Crisp Breakfast Cereal, produced here in Cambodia. We may not be well-provisioned, but at least we won’t starve.
……
Getting to this beach was a trip. The fishing boat we chartered yesterday took us as far as a row of shacks on the south shore, where we slept in the attic of the village chief. Dinner was whole fish boiled in lemon-grass broth, big bowls of rice and a plate of scrambled eggs with onions. We ate with the chief, a thin, shirtless man with congealed globs of black hair dye at his temples. He threw down the whole meal in about five minutes, spitting chewed hunks of fish onto the floor for the cat.
Three posters were tacked to the wall of the house for decoration, all bearing the marks of various aid agencies. One showed cartoons of happy children washing their hands. Another featured a mother horrified to find her child playing with a dead chicken. The third promoted OK Condoms with a picture of a young couple sitting on a couch, the woman holding a TV remote and wearing the same knowing expression you see in makeup advertisements.
That night the amoebas in my gut kept me awake, thrashing with stomach pains under the mosquito net. At some point, I fell asleep, only to wake up again with the most urgent of needs. Hunched over and burping, I crept downstairs in the dark, past the sleeping chief and his wife, through the kitchen and out back into the garden, where, fearful of snakes, I squatted among the banana trees under a full moon.
………
In the morning I wake to the sound of Jingle Bells playing on the chief’s cell phone. Ryan is in high spirits.
“I met a kid who speaks some English,” he says. “His name is Jenni. He and his friends can take us out fishing and then drop us off on the far side of the island before the wind picks up. Apparently there are bungalows on the beach over there.”
“Great,” I say, trying to mean it, but wanting to groan. “When do we leave?”
“He needs a little time to get the boat ready. Maybe an hour?”
“Really great,” I mutter, then drag myself over to the chief and ask where the toilet might be.
“Mountain,” he replies through a mouthful of rice.
And so I sneak into the garden once more, trying to avoid eye contact with the women at work among the vegetables.
……..
Ryan and I walk down the beach to find Jenni and his two friends working furiously to get an old long-tail boat seaworthy, patching cracks with gummy sealant, burning incense and arranging an offering of fruit and tea in the bow. A bunch of kids stand around watching, along with a toothless drunk and some older folks who wear a parental expression that I recognize well:
‘This is your project and we won’t interfere,” their faces say. ‘But we’ll be here to help if you get into trouble.’
……..
With a heave ho we drag the long-tail boat into the sea. The bilge immediately fills with water.
“No problem,” says Jenni, bailing energetically while his friend takes off his shirt, tears it to pieces and stuffs the strips of cloth into the biggest cracks. The last thing to get attached is the long-tail motor, which looks like the corroded hulk of an old weed-whacker. A wiry middle-aged man with oil stains on his shirt carries the motor over his shoulder and straps it to the stern, handing Jenni an extra sparkplug. With incense smoke rising, we pile into the shabby little craft, feeling fortunate to have left our laptops and extra clothes in the headman’s attic.
Getting started is an adventure. The motor sputters, catches, coughs and dies as the boat slowly fills with water and the whole village gathers on the beach to watch the drama unfold. Amid much yelling of advice and shaking of heads, Jenni and his friends yank on the start cord and bail, but despite their efforts, the long-tail just limps in slow circles around the harbor.
I lean over and whisper to Ryan – “How much are we paying for this boat?”
“I don’t know,” he whispers back. “I asked Jenni this morning, but he told me this is the first time he’s ever done anything like this before and he doesn’t know what to charge.”
“So long as he brings us to the far side of the island. I can’t spend another day pooping in the chief’s garden.”
The motor spins long enough to bring us alongside a squid boat anchored in the harbor. The captain is the drunk who was watching the preparations on the beach. He leans over the rail and gives us a big, toothless smile. A teenage crewmember who looks like the captain’s son grabs a wrench, strips off his clothes and jumps over the side.
In a few moments Captain Junior pulls himself over the rail of our boat and sets to changing the sparkplug. The motor hacks like someone dying of lung cancer and sends off a plume of black smoke. Junior gives us a thumbs-up and swims back to the squid boat. Spectators on the beach wave and cheer, and in a few moments, we’re out in the open sea.
………
Our boat is drifting in about ten meters of water halfway across the strait that separates Koh Rong from its sister island, Koh Rong Samloem. Big swells roll through the channel and the long-tail dips and rises with the waves.
Jenni sits high in the stern with a long bamboo pole, but the rest of us fish with hand lines. Mine is wrapped around a motor oil container, rigged with four hooks and a heavy lead sinker. The fishing is easy but unexciting. We bait the hooks with bits of fish, lower the rig to the bottom and haul up one small red fish after another, the same kind we ate for dinner with the chief last night.
After bobbing around for a while the swells start to pick up and we begin to drift beyond the strait and out into the open ocean. The buckets in the bilge are overflowing with fish. Jenni’s friends put away their hand lines and tuck into the fruit from the makeshift shrine in the bow. This seems a bit rash, seeing how the motor needs to start again if we’re going to make it back to land, but when they offer me a banana I chomp with sacrilegious relish.
The drunken squid boat captain comes out to see if we need any help, but our friends wave him away.
“We’re fine,” they say. “ We’re just going to drop the foreigners off around the bend and will be back home in time for lunch.”
The captain looks skeptical, but turns his boat around and motors back to the village. Junior waves from the stern.
Our motor does not start. It doesn’t even sputter. The waves are getting bigger. I need to poop.
Next stop: Malaysia.
Jenni pulls at the start cord with a vigor bordering on desperation, but there is nothing doing, just a flat, dry, whir. We’re sinking lower and water is starting to pour in over the gunwales. The young man still wearing his shirt now takes it off and starts waving it around his head, hoping to call back the squid boat, which is now visible only when we rise to the crest of a wave.
Ryan and I calmly pack passports, wallets, camera equipment and notebooks into dry bags and get ready to swim. This is where we make a good team; neither of us is prone to panic - Ryan because he knows how to deal with crisis situations, me because I have no common sense.
Praise be! The squid boat has seen the distress signal and is chugging back in our direction. Junior leans over the side and tosses us a rope while the captain stares down at our pitiful craft and laughs uproariously. Jenni and his friends look glum as our unfortunate little long-tail is towed back through the waves to the crowd waiting on the village beach.
………..
Jenni asks us to wait on the stoop of a shack while he goes to find the village mechanic. He still wants to take us around the bend, but the wind is starting to whip up whitecaps beyond the harbor. An old man with eyes that shine like torches emerges from the shadows of the shack and pours us cups of tea.
A crowd gathers, the drunken captain officiating. The mechanic arrives, removes our rusty weed-whacker and pronounces it toast. A new motor is produced, from the bottom of a scrap pile by the looks of it, and after a few yanks on the starter cord and some well placed whacks with a wrench, it growls to life, nearly decapitating a wobbly-legged puppy that was sniffing at the propeller blades.
The mechanic shrugs, straps on the new motor and, to my relief, comes with us in the boat this time, expertly steering through the swells and around the southwest tip of the island. Jagged rocks line the shore, backed by thick jungle.
“There are bungalows where we’re going, right Jenni?”
“Yes. I think so.”
Bungalow…the word is golden with possibility. Would we stumble across a secret beach resort, one with showers and mango smoothies and topless French girls toasting our adventure with flutes of cold champagne? Tonight, might we drift asleep between cotton sheets, listening to the soft strum of a guitar and the sound of gentle waves…
We round the corner and confront a great curve of trackless white sand backed by coconut palms. A mountain looms over the bay at the far end of the beach with a few huts tucked against its base.
“Village,” says Jenni.
“And the bungalows?” I ask hopefully.
“Bungalows here,” he says, pointing to the shore.
Sure enough, a bit of jungle has been cleared at the near end of the beach. And there are indeed bungalows, or bungalow to be more accurate, as only one appears finished. A group of workmen are hammering away at the frames of two more. Smoke rises from a pile of cut brush. The mechanic shouts for the boatman to drop anchor.
“I’ll swim ashore and see what the deal is,” says Ryan, who grabs the dry bag, jumps over the side and splashes through the heavy surf.
Jenni, his friends and the mechanic follow, tying the long-tail off to a coconut palm and leaving me alone with our bags.
The workmen have come down to the beach and seem deep in conversation with Ryan, when suddenly the rope holding me to shore snaps and the boat swings wildly in the waves.
“Ryan!” I yell. “Dry bag! DRY BAG!”
He plunges back into the surf, followed by the mechanic and the frantic young boatmen. With the boat pitched to one side, I snatch the bag from Ryan’s hands, stuff it full of gear, hand $15 to Jenni and jump overboard.
The mechanic pulls hard on the starter cord as the long-tail dips dangerously under a wave. Could this be the end of our ragged little craft? Fearing the worst, I drag myself onto the beach and turn around. The boat and its hapless crew are already chugging back around the bend.
“They’re going to think twice about taking tourists out next time,” I say, checking that the camera equipment and our wallets are dry.
“What did the guys building the bungalows tell you?”
“Well,” said Ryan, water dripping from his clothes. “They weren’t unfriendly. But we can’t stay here. That was very clear. They want us to go down the beach.”
I look at the four workmen, who are holding machetes. One is missing an arm.
“Hello,” I say, smiling.
“Hello,” the one-armed man replies.
Without smiling.
And with that, we set off down the beach in the direction of the village.
………
What a beach. The sand is so white that we can’t look down at it without wincing and so fine that it squeaks under our feet like new snow. Pale crabs skitter into the surf in terror as we walk along in a sort of daze.
The land in back of the beach is flat, and here and there languid streams of freshwater pool up against the dunes. We stop for a drink in the shade of a coconut palm, eat a packet of dry ramen, and try some of the La La Choco Crisps, which are delicious, but not exactly filling. Out over the bay, a white-headed sea eagle hovers over the green water, drops like a stone, and emerges with a long, silver fish in its talons.
“Why don’t we have any of the fish we caught this morning?” Ryan asks.
“Because we were too busy wondering if the boat was about to sink.”
“Bummer. Fish would taste good.”
I eat another package of Choco Crisps and consider our situation.
“We have a whole case of chocolate munchies, an empty beach and all the time in the world. Remind me why I threw out all the marijuana again?”
“I think it’s better not to smoke here,” says Ryan. “I’m going to catch some fish.”
He swims out into the bay with a hand-line and snorkel while I follow the dictates of the amoebas. A half hour later he returns empty handed.
“Where’s the fish,” I ask.
“In the ocean,” he replies.
“And the fishing line?”
“In the ocean too. How many packets of ramen do we have left?”
………
We walk up the beach for hours without seeing any sign of human presence, just a whining chainsaw in the distance and the scraggly huts of the village at the far end of the bay to remind us that other people live here. Ryan, ever the optimist, picks cockleshells from the surf.
“How are you going to cook those,” I wonder.
“At some point, I’ll be hungry enough to figure something out,” he says in a matter of fact tone.
I think about that for a moment, then start looking for shellfish too.
Late afternoon. Not wanting to camp too close to the village, we stop at the midpoint of the bay. Someone has camped here before, leaving a ring of charcoal at the base of a sea-pine.
Maybe this beach isn’t quite so deserted as we thought after all…another pine has a hand-lettered sign nailed to its trunk with a few lines of Cambodian script and two phone numbers.
“Maybe that says No Trespassing,” I wonder aloud.
“I think it says Land for Sale,” says Ryan. “Not a bad view, but a long way to the supermarket.”
We eat two more packets of Best Tasted ramen, savoring the burn of MSG.
……..
Dusk.
At first I thought the creatures flying overhead were birds, an epic migration of ravens perhaps, but as they drew closer there was no mistaking their furry oval bodies and broad leathery wings. Bats. Huge bats. Thousands of them. The first wave passed over like a dark cloud and when the last straggler flapped by night had come and a light rain began to fall.
Hunkered down in the tent, writing by headlamp, we feel the air begin to charge with the crackling energy of the approaching storm.
“Let’s move the tent,” says Ryan. “We’re too exposed on the beach.”
“We’ll be fine,” I whine, lazy. “Everything’s staked down.”
Ryan shakes his head. “I really think we should move.”
But at that moment the storm hits, cutting off all possibility of breaking camp. Rain whips against the tent and thunder rolls across the bay as we shiver in the dark, sort of crouched apprehensively, nerves on edge. I believe ‘cowering’ is the right word.
The thunder moves closer and closer until - BOOOOM - a crack like a gunshot splits the air with a burst of lightning right on top of it and we both scream and hit the floor of the tent. For a few minutes the rain comes down as hard as ever, then slackens.
We lie back on the tent floor like heroin junkies relaxing after a big hit.
“First giant bats, then a lightning strike,” I say. “What’s next, a zombie army?”
That was when we heard the voices.
………..
Four men, coming down the beach from the direction of the village. It’s pitch dark but we can hear them – they sound wired, or maybe drunk, the rain is still coming down and in a flash of lightning we see our visitors, black shapes on the beach, looking down at our tent. They approach, standing on our doorstep. I fumble for the zipper, stick my head out in the general area of their knees and say “Hello” in what I hope is an upbeat ‘Howdy Neighbor’ sort of voice.
A massive flash of blue lightning suddenly illuminates the whole scene and my glands pump out one last, massive shot of adrenaline.
“He has an axe in his hand,” says Ryan, in a curious, abstract sort of voice, as if he were pointing out an unusually large gecko, or an albino cow and not a GLEAMING SHARP METAL EDGE BEING HELD SIX INCHES FROM MY THROAT ON A DESERTED CAMBODIAN BEACH IN A THUNDERSTORM.
I squat into what I hope is a defensive position, shifting onto my toes, ready to dodge, or bolt through the door if necessary, but believe me, its hard to feel ready for action when you’re half naked and crouching at the feet of a potential axe murderer.
The men are definitely drunk. One of them says something in Khmer. “OK,” I reply, and after a few more attempts at conversation, they continue down the beach in the rain. Ryan takes out his Leatherman and opens the blade as we try to decide– rationally speaking – if we should fear for our lives.
“I don’t think they’re dangerous,” says Ryan.
“Yeah. Neither do I. But this is the kind of thing it’s nice to be 100% certain about.”
“We could leave the tent and hide in the jungle,” he suggests.
“But it’s still raining.”
“Get wet or get hacked to pieces?”
“I thought you said they aren’t dangerous.”
“Well, probably. But we are in a vulnerable position. And they’re definitely drunk.”
“Who walks up to a tent in the middle of a thunderstorm brandishing an axe!” I moan. “It’s not very considerate! And where the hell could they possibly be going?”
“We’re probably fine,” says Ryan. “If they wanted to rob us they would have done it already. Unless they’re waiting for us to go to sleep of course.”
“You were right,” I say. “I’m glad I didn’t bring the marijuana. It would have been death by paranoia.”
We stay in the tent. Large crabs creep and rustle in the underbrush, claws dragging through the sand, bodies sometimes brushing up against the tent wall.
It wasn’t the best night of sleep I’ve ever enjoyed.
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Read Chapter One, “Christmas in Cambodia”
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