The slow boat

We got on the boat from Koh Rong to Sihanoukville at 9 in the morning. The glut of tourists during the Chinese New Year had filled up all the seats on the sleek, shiny “Speed Ferry” we had taken to the island several days earlier, so this time we got stuck with a much older and more ramshackle wooden “slow boat.” This boat was alarmingly overcrowded, but every other option would be equally risky, so we had no choice but to settle in and hope that we wouldn’t become one of those obscure, morbid news headlines back home. You know the ones: “Ferry sinks off Cambodian coast, 86 dead or missing.” No seats were vacant, so Chris and I were forced to climb up to the roof of the boat, where we got as comfortable as we could amid the coils of rope and scattered trash. A dozen or so sullen travelers were already up there, quietly baking in the sun. I overheard an Irish tourist perched nearby say that it was like being on one of the Famine Ships. Chris and I said nothing.

I took out a baseball cap and crammed it on my salt-encrusted head. Chris lit a cigarette. Still more people climbed aboard, and the boat began to list in a very disconcerting manner until the crew scrambled to move baggage around and correct the imbalance. I looked around the postcard-perfect tropical paradise and thought that this would be as good a place as any to die.

Finally the ferry sputtered away from the dock. Chris grinned ruefully and said, “This IS the slow boat.” I leaned my head against the wooden railing — careful to avoid the exposed nails — and closed my eyes.

After we’d been moving for ten minutes or so, I looked off the side of the boat and saw a flying fish launch itself out of the water and skip across the waves like a silver meteor. Islands loomed in the distance like long gray beasts, and here and there wooden dhows and container ships broke the blue expanse. I noticed the lovely breeze that had been coming off the sea, and started to forget my irritation and fear. I looked down at the deck below and saw a young man and a boy sitting along the rail in the orange robes of Theravada Buddhist monks, silently taking in the same view.

I thought back to a book I had read by a monk from Vietnam, and took a second to breathe consciously, forget the past and future, and enjoy the present moment.

A little while later, I put headphones in and listened to a few songs: “Almost Home” by Moby and Damien Jurado, “Death of a Train” by Daniel Lanois, and “Tupelo Honey” by Van Morrison.

The water was a perfect azure, and I tried in vain to catch the names and nationalities of the ships that passed our little wooden ferry. It occurred to me that if the boat sank right then, I’d be more disappointed that the journey was over than afraid of drowning. On that boat at that moment, everything in the universe was alright.

I saw a lot of really cool stuff during my ten days in Cambodia. Ancient temples grander and more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. Haunting monuments in memory of the massacre of millions by those who were once their friends and neighbors. A long road trip under a strange sunset, with good friends, good music and bad whiskey. An indescribably beautiful island in a tropical Eastern sea, surrounded by luminescent plankton that glowed like fireflies in the dark whenever I moved through the water.

But my favorite moment might have been that instant on that slow, rickety old ferry, when I realized that my worries and frustrations were nothing but pointless distractions and let them all float away on the wind.