Soul and Spirits, Cambodia

We headed out with baskets of fresh produce destined for our meals for the next several days. Laying out on the top of the boat, cooled by the salty July breeze, we passed tiny Cambodian islands just big enough for one temple or one family home, as Van Morrison rocked my gypsy soul through the iPhone that hadn't yet been stolen.
You just never know when those moments will happen. The ones you return to repeatedly, to remind yourself that you really have been that on-top-of-the-world happy. Those moments blow by like sea breezes, so you have to stay alert. (“…smell the sea and feel the sky, let your soul and spirit fly…)
As daylight shifted and the sky drizzled, and we came upon Koh Rong, a surfing destination. Koh Rong Samloem is further, and at that time was only a small fishing community and an underdeveloped string of cabins connected to a surfing school.
We dropped off our bags in our little thatch-roofed beach hut to poke around before daylight disappeared. No electricity, no wifi. We looked out to the little strait between us and the facing island, (which is reported to be magic and covered in snakes), just as a family of free-roaming water buffalo strolling the beach in front of us.
Night came and introduced our bathroom resident, a vibrant blue and red Tokay gecko about 45 cm.long, who spent all on the walls, eating insects and protesting “uh-uhh!”, a sound I would grow to love in my year and a half in Southeast Asia.
Trekking across the island toward the fishing port, I became enchanted with, of all things, a cast iron hand-cranked ice shaver. It's is still in use, providing icy treats for the village’s people, most of whom completely ignored us.
Even if you are a westerner living in Southeast Asia, you’ll likely miss the cues that real human interaction is happening, but on a more subtle level that most westerners are attuned to. It’s the cultural equivalent of not being able to hear tones in Chinese if you didn't learn as a baby. I have no idea what those villagers actually thought of us.
Later, as we headed back to our little cabin on the beach, a farmer waved us over to share fresh-caught crab and a local home brew with his family. We know no Khmer, and they knew no English, but since most of language is nonverbal, we did managed well. We left them, as we did the rest of the island, with a little monetary token of thanks, not a payment, and not nearly as much of a treasure as what they gave.