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“Cardamom” Tented Camp is tucked into a part of jungle that lies five hours west of Phnom Penh, close to the border with Thailand. The camp sits on the river towards the eastern side of Botum Sakor National Park; one more lodge, not so remote and built 12 years ago, occupies the western side. This project is being financed by the richest guy in Thailand, an American, who oddly (to me) has shown no interest in coming to visit. Whatever his motivation, his investment insures that the 20% of the park not owned and being razed by private companies, mostly Chinese, is protected. 100% of the money that will be made here (this year, Allan, our host, hopes just to break even) will be funneled back into preservation projects like the Ranger Station we kayaked to 3 miles upriver. These efforts are already bearing fruit, as we saw in the display of hand-made guns, snares, and nets the rangers have confiscated from poachers. Of interest in the area are rare green peacocks, a few remaining elephant, the world’s largest moth (the Atlas), pangolins, or termite-eaters, whose scales go into Chinese soup, and a whole slew of medicinal and/or spice trees (e.g., cinnamon).

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One of the men on staff is especially funny, and we laughed a lot at how the Chinese want pretty much anything that lives or moves here for their “medicine.” Among the sustainable health aids are elephant poop and swallows’ nests. Dotting the countryside are 4 or 5-story concrete towers, nesting houses for the birds, with gentle music played throughout the day and pools of cool water. One villager, when asked what he would like to come back as in his next life, replied: “a swallow, they have it easy.” The Chinese eat these nests (primary ingredient: saliva), and some go for as much as $3,000/kilo.

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The 78-hectare Cardamom property is managed by a loquacious 53-year-old Englishman (and his pretty Cambodian bride). Allan left banking 17 years ago to become a wildlife photographer and film-maker. He is not a hotelier, but like any one of us who would take on a project like this because we thought it was cool and worthwhile. In the 13 months since the camp opened, Allan has unexpectedly had to: replace the roof on the dining platform (the tree growing through it re-seeded the roof); put in new cables for the ones the rats ate through; figure out ways to keep monkeys out of the kitchen, where they eat the eggs and other treats.

Shortly after we arrived, Allan breezily informed us that he “and the Missus” were taking off early the next morning for three days. The unsettled look on our faces solicited his reassurances that a) a couple of the staff standing silently by could actually speak English, and b) if we looked at the very short wine list, we could see that not all the titles had been scratched off by Sharpie.* This helpful information was delivered just after he told us that pit vipers are a “real” problem, so much so that one of the workers building the camp had to be medevaced after getting bitten (good to know there’s a fast way to a hospital); another man, a villager, had to amputate his hand when he did not properly care for a spider bite. The next morning Don, a French guy, and I set off into the jungle in single file between one guy carrying a huge knife and another with a gun strapped to his belt.

*Allan also offered up his opinion (I don’t remember the context) that toilet paper is unsanitary. I was at a loss to respond. Of course used TP is unsanitary if you must place it in a bin next to the toilet. But no one has shown us how to use the “squirter” that resides next to the toilet. (Update: I have since tried it and found it delightful, if impossible to apply in a contained manner while standing over a porcelain hole in the ground with your underwear around your knees. The Cambodians seem just as flummoxed by our toilets, as “Don’t squat on the toilet” signs appear in every public place).

True to Allan’s word, we have been cared for beyond our needs, with three simple, but delicious meals a day (rice, carrots, cauliflower or eggplant and pork, with sweet-n-sour soup for lunch/dinner, rice or potatoes and one fried egg for breakfast). Dessert at lunch is a small plate of cut-up dragonfruit, watermelon, mango, or apple, but after dinner – Ah! – there are delicacies dreamed up long ago by Allan’s chocolatier grandfather that float incongruously out of the kitchen: chocolate lava cake with one small scoop of ice-cream, lime soufflé, chocolate mousse. The delightful ambiance of these meals has been supplemented by our lively conversations with the wonderful German and English tourists who have shared this place with us. Tonight, a well-fed East German woman waxed on poetically about the stunningly clear lake she spends hours swimming backstroke in near her home in what used to be East Germany. I thought she was going to cry. We are kindred souls.

Beyond the Facts: I am in a state of wonder at the changes that have come over Don and me during the last three days. Our first full day, we got up at 5:45 after a fitful night of hot, sticky sleep. After a single, insufficiently energizing cup of coffee, we paddled a double kayak up to the ranger station and then trekked back to the camp. At this point, I scanned my brain, trying to remember my conversation with the tour guide about why we would stay a full three nights at this minimally supplied outpost. Rather than taking the whole morning (as it was supposed to), this structured activity ended at 10 a.m., which left the rest of the day yawning wide open. Nothing else was planned. What would we do in the heat that had been so enervating the afternoon before?

I was surprised by epiphanies in the wake this question left. Adrift and a little nervous, when I actually stopped ruminating and took a breath, I noticed that the two young men who tend the bar all day were just standing around, too. Sometimes they were on their phone, but mostly they were just there. When one caught my eye, the expression he levelled at me was perfectly calm and self-assured. He wasn’t bored, nor did he seem to mind that I had caught him doing nothing at that moment (at other times, he jumps at the slightest expression of a question or need). Observing this helped me realize that it’s really not hard to spend a day. Yes, the afternoon that followed was long, and I couldn’t tell you exactly how I passed it, but it made me wish that every day could be this…slow. After initially wanting to check out of this place early, I looked forward to sleeping so that I could wake up to a second whole, event-less day. I was not disappointed. Between my book, jumping in and out of the cool river, and sitting still watching a blessed rain shower, I have burrowed into the present moment.

Time passes, and as it does, it feels like a small miracle. I have felt this keenly at pre-dawn outings as we watch the darkness lighten and lift. Morning resolves into afternoon, into evening, and there has been time enough. Can you remember the last day you spent without feeling rushed at all? I remember Don telling me when he first retired that all he wanted was “to not be rushed.” This idea sounded stupidly impractical and it annoyed me to hear him state it. But now I get it, Don. We should aspire to measure time not by clocks, not by our frenzied means of consuming news and entertainment, but by finding a rhythm of life we like and matching our own rhythm to it. Here, before the sun dips behind the opposite bank and we begin to look forward to a late-afternoon beer, delights abound, in the whisper of a breeze, the full palate of jungle greens, the slowly sliding river.

This time has been blissful for us as a couple. We have heard and responded to the same music, realizing pretty much together that there is no end to this kind of happiness. We follow each other like minnows in a pond, playfully joking, lying down together in the middle of the day, heading out to the river for a swim, coming back to share the things we have thought and written down. The quiet of this place and our understanding that all we need is right here with us has fed a deep, affectionate, and abiding love.