Maria Safont-Tria

After a few months of constantly moving and changing, finally I had a place to settle for a little bit again. Indeed this place wasn't like the ones I had been before, since in here the concept of volunteering was very different to what I had done before. In here I was just another worker, whose payment wasn't through money but by benefits such as food, drinks, accomodation, transport... Which made the experience completely different to what I was used to, but also a beautiful one and with lots of learnings.
Anthony, a french guy I had met in my last hostel in the island, got completely captivated by my plan for the next month, and decided to join me. And that, without any doubt made the experience absolutely better. We worked long hours and some days it was quite demanding, because when the day was sunny the place was full and you had to do three things at a time on your own. But also, sometimes you just sat waiting for hours to pass because there wasn't really much to do. We were trusted with money from the beginning and you could clearly see how necessary we were.I learned a big deal about bartending and making cocktails (must say I am quite good at it) and everyday practiced some french with Anthony, while he was learning spanish with me.
During this past month, got the chance to meet some beautiful people and have some very nice laughs, such as a very characteristic swiss couple, some doctors working in Phnom Penh and some very sweet families. But also, my relationship with my boss wan't the best, since from the very beginning she treated me with despise always having something bad to say about me (but always with a smile, which made it even worse) such as "you're giving more attention to some guests than to others", "you didn't smile with enough enthusiasm while welcoming people" or things of the matter, that I can assure Anthony would have never even though of (cause I was more experienced in hostelery than him). I even got banned once from eating fruit so they would be for the guests (which hurt me a lot since its the base of my diet). My perception of her was that she person who only though of money and would never move a finger further than necessary for anyone, which chocked a bit with me (for example, we once took a juice by mistake to some guests that they didn't order and she charged them because they didn't refuse them, or charged for a simple glass of water), but always hid everything in her smile and niceness. And I guess, that was also an interesting exprience, because it was the first time I didn't have a warm relationship with my boss, but felt pressured and uncomfortable by its presence. The kitchen staff were beautiful (they tried to teach us some khmer unsuccessfully), and the owners (a sweet and relaxed family formed by Ken, Lida and TeyTey) and Ken's brother, Da' was always showing up there to help and give a nice idea, and fell in love with Lala, a smart 2 year old who was always around and with whom we always understood each other, nevertheless not speaking a word of each other's language. It was a holiday spot, so the customers were always nice and chilled, sometimes curious and hoping to have some nice conversation with us, which was a bit complicated because of our amount of work. And the fist thing to do every mooring was to walk about 10 steps and jump into the (most of the time) cristal water), as well as the very last thing before going to bed. Had more types of cocktails that I ever tried in my life, ate a looot, and was veryvery lazy. We had a huge storm for some days that broke many things (even trapped guests in the place) and many things broke, such as the wifii, so must of the time we were disconected of the world (even had to walk along the jungle to find somewhere with wifii to do a bit of my masters at some point), and when the poor wifi worked it was too weak to let you do anything. So we just read, relaxed and swam. Sometimes doing some different activities such as going for a run, visiting some beautiful hidden carvings on the jungle, snorkel on the reef, watch a movie or made some coconut oil. I also tought some yoga on the sunny days, having a large variety of students (even had a 7 year old more than once, who was more into it than the 60 year old next to him). The classes were on the beach with a towel, that I offered private classes for a very cheap prise and I had the chance to make some very personalized classes, which was very different to what I was used to (and made a bit of money, with some nice tips most of the time), I once got s student attacked by a crab on a class even!

As for the setting, we owned the whole beach and the closest thing such as civilization was Sarracen Beach, half an hour away on a treck with a minimart where you could buy basic things and some hotels and restaurants. The beach was always very dirty because the water just brought all the dirt that the locals and fisherman threw on the water, even though the workers spent a good amount of time to clean it daily. The bungalows were basic but enough, and really touching the beach, with always some companions around. For example we had a huge lizard living with us for the hole month, and I once had to take a rat from a guests room (which I released on the jungle instead of what I was meant to do because I was very unable of sacrificing the poor thing), and experienced our cat kitty giving birth in front of us.

Overall, beautiful and teaching experience, sometimes with some mixt feelings, but the scenario and privileges always made it worth it. And now, I am ready to say goodbye to the place and head towards the next adventure in... Thailand!

🍴Food: Lazy beach (coconut curry, yellow curry, amok, french toasts with banana jam, pasta homemade tomato sauce, banana fritters with nutella, peanut butter banana shake and any cocktail made by me:\)
📍Essentials: carvings in the jungle, be very lazy at lazy beach (maybe a cocktail for sunset), Da's coconut oil workshop, swim with the plankton at night and admire the beautiful clear sky (you can even see the milky way and lots of falling stars)
💡Some facts: this beach is considered one of the 21 most beautiful beaches in the world by National Geographic (even though its quite beautiful, I must disagree with it though, its not that stunning)Baca selengkapnya