The Island of Expat Moreau

Rabbit Island, Cambodia. I may have mentioned in a previous post that some expats have a peculiar way of detaching themselves from their country of origin. Some adopt local custom and dress, others crack wise at the expense of their own countrymen, many spend their lives at the bar, wistfully plowing their way through luke-warm local draft, drunkenly reminiscing about the time they met Jack Dempsey, or at least they think it was Jack Dempsey (they were drunk). Stretching the bounds of reality lies a lessor known breed of expat, as rare and evasive as an objective Fox News report--the Island Castaway Expat. 

A few miles off the Cambodian coast lies a tropical stretch of sand and swaying palms known as Koh Tonsay. Rabbit Island, as us white folks call it, is not named not for its indigenous wildlife, but rather for its shape, which, when viewed overhead, looks exactly like someone stuffed a rabbit into a tortoise shell and then smashed it with a mallet. Cambodian's have an imagination rivaled only by the Greeks. Sagittarius "The Archer", my ass. Good luck connecting those dots.

When people yearn for a real-life tropical escape, this is it. Completely uninhabited, save a small population of local fisherman, Rabbit Island consists of a 2km sandy white beach, warm turquoise waters, and perhaps four dozen rustic bamboo bungalows. That's it. No dock, no cruise ships, no tourist buses, no travelers, no showers. Nothing but hammocks, coconuts, and the shopping bags full of alcohol we brought. "We" being the group of blokes I met back at Bodhi Villa in our last installment.

This was paradise, if one keeps in perspective that the biblical description of Eden makes no mention of flushable toilets. Upon our arrival we hopped off the boat into the knee-deep waters and trundled up the shore to our new home. The bungalows were completely homogenous, save one, a peculiar outpost that at first glance looked like a small shop. In place of the beige bamboo, there was colorful splash of red and blue. Instead of the customary knitted hammock, there was a mattress swinging between two trees. In lieue of a front wall, there was an array of buffed and painted seashells suspended between a few cross beams. And instead of a young traveler, there was Peter, a sixty-something, chrome domed, bespectacled Brit with a small chest and a large gut, playing a flute recorder next to his friend Yvan, a thin, wiry Slovakian with a shock of wild grey hair, who was busy rolling a joint the size of a Cuban cigar.

A half dozen coconut husks, painted silver and gold, dangled from a horizontal pole in front of the mysterious bungalow. After settling in I went and had a chat with our new neighbor. Peter explained that after toiling away in England's public works for the better part of a century he wanted to spend his retirement "away from the riff-raff". He hired a local women to cook in his little hut, then went about decorating the place. He had been there for six months, and lamented that he needed to fly back to England "for my grandkid's birthday or something. You know, family and things like that". Yvan, his friend, was "ex-KGB, aren't you Yvan? Ha! HA!". Every now and again Peter would abrubtly stand up, race down his coconut line, and spin each husk wildly, the small planets hurling off their insectezoid denizens in every direction. At night, when combined with the flashing lights he had installed both in his open-front bungalow and in the trees behind it, he had the islands sole tropical disco. With his big gut and perfectly bald head, he was Marlon Brando, larger than life.

As for me, I splashed in the bathtub temperature waters, circumnavigated the island on foot, drank too much liquor, played a few card games and lounged in a hammock for the better part of two days. A guy could get used to a life like this. But there was still so much more to see. Vietnam beckoned on the horizon. The Mekong Delta was calling. I'm just about ready to answer.