Updates from the Road: Watch Out for those Coconut Trees

Yesterday we went kayaking and I almost died. The two events are totally unrelated.

Just to keep the suspense rolling, I'll start with the kayaking trip. As I said before, we are staying at a guesthouse by the river, so we took some kayaks out a few hours before sunset and toured an area of mangroves by boat. Can I tire of saying the scenery was beautiful? Probably, but it was. We paddled up the placid waters of the river just as the sky was turning orange above Bokor Mountain. To top it off, I took a dip in the river just as the sun said goodbye. It was peaceful and lovely.

How did I almost die? Well, after our return to the guesthouse, I was walking toward our bungalow from the boat dock when a coconut dropped straight from the tree - and I'm not kidding - not more than A FOOT from where I was standing. I'm strolling along and then all of a sudden this big brown nut as big as my head is lying at my feet. I hardly had time to be shocked as it had dropped so fast, but can you imagine if I'd chosen to step a few inches to my left? I was thinking about buying one of those shirts at the market that says, "I survived Cambodia," but if the coconut had its way, that wouldn't be necessary. As my mother would say, someone was looking out for me that night.

This morning, we took another bike trip across the river and up a mountain to see a waterfall. I'm not sure we made it to the waterfall we were supposed to see and, again, needed some villagers' guidance along the way, but we did manage to make it to a pool in the stream where we could take a refreshing dip.

Now we are off to Kep, on the last leg of our journey.