Hows about we open this one with a quote:
"When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things."
That is one of those quotes I have heard paraphrased innumerous times in various contexts. Turns out its a bible quote. Go figure? It strikes a chord with me though, largely because I do not agree with it. It harks to responsibility, to expectation, to a 'grown up' mind set. The burden of adulthood which we all eventually come to bear.
A friend of mine who had been travelling before and passed on to me all manner of advice, told me that everyone who goes backpacking for a long term period is running away from something and you can see that there is a sense of truth to that. You find abundant examples of individuals running a tortoise and hare race with their demons around the globe, too varied in their nature to adequately summise. If there was however one unified factor to identify which so many seem to be trying to unshackle themselves from, it is that of adulthood. The backpacking community is like a teeming mass of lost boys, looking for their neverland and not having to do away with childish things.
If you read that paragraph as a sentimental excuse for a hoard of arrested adolescents to forgo responsibility in order to get drunk in foreign locations, well you can certainly be excused for coming to that conclusion. You are not far off. It is more than the sheer festivity of it though. It goes beyond hedonism, beyond financial disregard and beyond an escape from the rat race. It is about regaining a sense of wonder. Reclaiming your right to shock and awe. Re-embraching a sense of spectacle, of discovery. Allowing yourself once more to believe there might just be magic in the world.
All these things that we take for granted in our early youth that too many of us strive to cast off before their time until it gets to the point that you can no longer remember when you stopped believing. Freeing yourself from the trappings of adult life in a place like South East Asia makes it easier to connect once more with these feelings. On any given day you can see so many things that take your breath away, its amazing you don't suffocate.
Having been out here for almost 4 months I have been fortunate enough to see a great number of people who should be old enough to know better, revel in infantile glee through any number of situations. There is however one toy in natures play pen that has an effect like none other I have witnessed.
Bioluminesence.
Or in the case out here, biolumisencent phytoplankton.
Or just glowing plankton. That's easier right?
That is ostensibly what it is. As ever I have neither the scientific knowledge, nor the inclination to research in order to explain how the phenomenon works. If you are reading this, you also have access to google. Go look it up yourself if you care that much.
Here is what I can tell you. The ocean is full of plankton and when you move through them after dark, they light up around you. It is staggering, it is humbling. It is enchanting, entrancing and enticing. It is like submerging yourself in a black canvas whilst some greater power draws around the outline of your being in glitter paint. Literally.
I have been lucky enough to find myself in a couple of locations that offer bioluminescent night swimming and I can honestly say, it has yet to get old. The only thing greater than swimming in to dark waters and watching them explode with light around you, is watching other people do the same. You see it time and time again, folks convinced that such a spectacle shouldn't be real, therefore can't be real. Surely you must have to trek to some obscure location? Maybe it only works at highly specific late hour? Perhaps you need to recite an acient greek incantation whilst offering up a blood sacrifice to Lord Poseidon? No, No and possibly (I have yet to look in to that last option.)
I am far from an expert, all I can say is that I do not have a count of the amount of times I have swam in such circumstances during my time here and it has never been harder than throwing yourself in and letting yourself go. And the release is palpable. Hearing the shrieks of delight, whether they be from hippie or hipster, it bewitches all. You get a fair few characters passing through this part of the world who like to think they have seen it all. Playing a game of location based one upmanship, they carry themselves as unshockable, unphaseable. When you meet such an individual that has yet to see the plankton, and watch as they experience it for the first time it is a true delight of life. The sparkling water flowing over them truly seems to cleanse all sense of pretension, cynicism and general smugness for at least a few sweet minutes.
It is certainly one of the most narcotic experiences you can have whilst entirely sober. It seems to instill in people a sense of euphoria free from intoxication. It soaks through to your inner 5 year old and casts it in to a giant ball pit. The effect it has on peoples spirits is almost as remarkable as the effect it has on their clothing. You could almost be forgiven for thinking the plankon has an acidic quality that simply dissolves fabric. People will dip their toes in, watch the first sparkles appear around their ankles and suddenly find themselves emerging from the water 20 minutes later wearing a birthday suit where once there was a bathing suit. Eventually they discover their garments discarded on the shore at a location in which they vaguely remember hastily disrobing some time before. The lucky ones that is.
I reflect on the plankton at this juncture because it was Koh Rong when it first came in to my life. It has been my fortune to witness it on more occasions than I can adequately recall by now but that was the first place I knew the wonder. Every time I have swam in it is a fresh story un to itself and I could recount the splendour endlessly but there I have neither the time or words to do it justice on each occasion. This will have to suffice but it will never truly capture the feeling of your eyes widening and your skin tingling as you attempt to take it in. Just know that it is a good time. And if you don't believe, venture out in to the world and discover it for yourself. Do away with adulthood, or at the very least allow yourself a moment to pretend.
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