Animal adventures

In an effort to escape the traffic and crowds of the recent water festival, we travelled to Kampot (a sleepy fishing village) for four nights. Our guesthouse sat along the river so that we too could enjoy the “season” with various boating trips.

But if I was to choose a theme for the holiday it would be “animal adventure”. In addition to a trip to the local zoo, we had a large number of unplanned events.

From early morning spiderlings hatching on my pillow to nightly rat antics under our bed, we had the whole day covered. We dug for pippies in a sandbank and watched water buffaloes swim across the river. We visited “Rabbit Island” where a cow followed us as we attempted to walk around the island. Dogs joined us for mealtimes while we ate more seafood that we have eaten in the past year … and fed the local mosquitoes.

However, the highlight would have to be when Princess decided to play with the zoo’s leopard. Thinking he looked like an overgrown version of our own kitty, she waved her hat at its huge outreached paws and threw it at him in fright when he responded – enjoying the new toy. Steve bravely fished the chewed hat back while we all howled with laughter. At first embarrassed, now Princess tells us with her infatiguable optimism that her hat has been kissed by a leopard.

It is she who is teaching me to look at such holidays as adventures. Thank you, Princess.