Koh Rong, Cambodia.

The short:

Koh Rong is a tiny, remote island in Cambodia. There are no roads, tuk tuk's or motorbikes. There is just sand. Pure, untouched, white sand. And beautiful, crystal clear blue sea, filled with hot and cold pockets that you bob through as you float with the waves. Koh Rong is said to be the Thai Islands 20 years ago, before tourists spoiled their natural beauty and they became more developed to cater for Western demands. Hence the island is very, very basic. There is no mains electricity whatsoever. The power runs off a generator, which is only switched on between the hours of 6pm to the early hours of the morning, depending on where you stay. You sleep in beach bungalows that are bug and cobweb infested and, since the power is shut off during the night, there is no AC or fans to keep you cool from the humid night air, the mattresses are hard, there is no hot water, and all the electronics that you want charged have to be taken to a central charging station. It is one of the most beautiful places that I have ever been, with probably the worst accommodation that I have ever stayed in. Life's contradictions! 

From the central pier to the left you have the local village, and to the right the beach bars and hostels built mostly for the Western traveller. I have to say that I was so amazed with how welcoming the locals were to our presence, with the many young Khmer's working in the bars alongside whities that have decided to escape the real world and set up home here, having formed unmistakeable bonds. There is also a surprising amount of dogs on the island and, in fact, in Asia generally. Aside from being very cute they are sadly flea-ridden and in desperate need of meds, which I find rather heartbreaking! The food was mostly good, with lots of beachfront restaurants offering delectable BBQ options. Unfortunately for me though, I didn't manage to find a fresh coconut all week and, because there is no electricity making it incredibly hard to keep food frozen, there were no ice creams! Both gutting, but the view that I woke up to every morning just about made up for it.

The long:

Tuesday:

My alarm screamed to life at 6:30am and I was where I was supposed to be for my bus pick up to Koh Rong at 7am. 7:30, 7:45, 8, 8:15 went by... I was starting to get very worried. Everyone travelling with other bus companies to Sihanoukville (where you catch the ferry to Koh Rong) had been picked up long before. The last ferry is at 3pm and the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in Sihanoukville for a night on my own. I must have asked reception to call the bus company 5 times, and every time I was told that it was on its way and not to worry. Then I was told to take a tuk tuk to the bus station, courtesy of the bus company, as one of the main roads had been closed and they had no way of reaching the hostel. Due to traffic it took my warrior of a tuk tuk driver 45 minutes to get to the station, at which point it was 9:15am. I was told that my 8am bus had left but that they would get me on the 9:30am bus (even though I had originally tried to book that bus the day before and and been told that it was fully booked). When 9:45am rolled around and I was still sat in an office I began to get very PANTSY (a word that I've just invented to describe when Pants gets Antsy, which I'm sure is a state that my beloved family can envision). FINALLY, a bus came and with promises of dropping me at the ferry pier if we were running out of time, and free accommodation if I missed the last ferry, I left satisfied enough with my bargain, albeit peeved off that I could have had an extra 2 hours in bed. 

I made the 3pm boat!!! Happy days. The views en route to Koh Rong were stunning and I was so excited to hit the beach and get brown! 

The sun had begun to set by the time I arrived, so I enjoyed the sunset and walk to choose my hostel in the last glimmers of sunshine.

The Canadian guys that I had met were staying at "Monkey Island", as were the 2 really nice English girls that I had befriended the previous evening at my hostel in Phnom Penh. My Google researching had also informed me that it was going to be the best bang that I could get for my buck without entering a higher price bracket, so my choice of accommodation was pretty much a done deal from the off. After a quick (naturally cold) shower we all headed to the hostel restaurant for some dinner, where I enjoyed 2-for-1 G&T's and an excellent Khmer cashew chicken dish. Seeing as Monkey Island is one of the first on the island to switch off its electricity, when the power cut out at 12am upon one of the Vietnamese workers announcing "good evening, good night, f*** off", much to our amusement, we sauntered down the beach towards the booming music, stopping for a few drinks at another beach bar, where we met some other fun people that we chatted to for a few hours. I was unbelievably knackered though due to my early start and stressful day, so made my way to bed before the others, nodding off around 2am.

Wednesday:

Despite waking up in a sodden bed, due to a heavy downpour during the night leaking through the thatched roof directly above my bed, I managed to sleep until 11:15am. Bloody amazing! I was so happy that my mind and body had finally been able to switch off and I'd gotten a decent stretch of hours in; it was desperately needed! The start of my day was only made better when I opened my hut door to baking hot heat and clear blue skies. After a generous and fresh portion of fruit salad I hit the beach with my Canadian friends, Jeff and Mich. We walked for 20 minutes through the jungle to reach "4km beach", where we spent the afternoon lazing in the sun, listening to music and chatting. The beach was more deserted than the main one so it was almost like having a slice of paradise all to yourself, which is hard to come by these days. The highlight of my day was watching some locals going about their work, with a skinny Vietnamese man using a water buffalo to transport a log of wood from land into the sea and onto a boat, whilst his kid climbed up the buffalo, jumped off of it, and played with his tail, almost giving the impression that these are domesticated and safe animals, when we had been warned upon arrival on the island that they are incredibly dangerous and not to approach them.

It must have taken 5 adults and a water buffalo a good 30 minutes to get the log on to the ship, hitting home the virtues of technology and how for granted we take the luxuries in our lives. Life is slow in Cambodia! When the sun eventually disappeared behind the jungle we made our way back to our beach and, after a quick freshen up, went to the hostel restaurant once more for drinks and dinner (it's very tasty and you can charge things to the room, making it all too easy), where we made friends with a group of very nice Germans (despite their funny accents). Cards were played from a deck totalling 49 cards, making it a little interesting at times, before the electricity was inevitably turned off at midnight, at which point we moved our fun to the beach and sat talking until my eyelids couldn't hold out any longer and I crashed into my bed for another good night's sleep. However, the downpour of the previous evening soon presented itself once more leaving me to wake up damp and uncomfortable.

Thursday:

It seemed the spell of snoozedom had been broken as I rose from the dead at the respectable hour of 9:15am. It was a scorching hot day and after another fill of exotic fruits I baked in the sun for a few hours, running into the cooling sea every 5 minutes so as not to melt into a puddle. With a few day dreams and a good dent made in my book, I invited some of the others at the hostel to join me on a day tour that I had seen advertised around the island, which involved a boat trip to a good snorkelling spot, followed by a visit to the more remote and local nearby fishing village, some actual fishing, some (hopeful) eating of the catch whilst watching the sunset, and swimming with bioluminescent plankton!!! Obviously all to be completed with plenty of alcohol; I don't think they ever received the memo over here that drinking and swimming, let alone in the deep sea, let alone in the pitch black of night, could be considered dangerous. I love the lack of health and safety though; yes, more accidents probably do happen, but you get to experience the world and explore in a much more real and thus fulfilling way. Anyway, the Canadian guys were up for it so we hopped on the boat at 2pm and began introductions with the other 16 people on board.

Stop 1 was snorkelling. 

The water was pretty murky and the corals pretty grey, so I wasn't overly impressed. But having spotted a huge number of sea urchins (and done my best to dodge them) and a few interesting fish (that I didn't manage to pap), I was satisfied and climbed aboard our boat, up the stairs, and stretched out on the roof for a spot of sunbathing. The life.

Stop 2 was M'Pay Bay Village, a local fishing village with barely any tourists. 

I ambled through the tiny place on my own taking in the lifestyle and trying to capture it as best I could.

^ This being my all time favourite shot of the day and perhaps of my whole trip so far. Throughout my Asia travels my friends and I have frequently commented on how lacklustre the parenting is, with babies sitting on worktops whilst their parents backs are turned to them, children left to bike on horrifically busy, dangerous roads; climb trees with no aids; slice open coconuts with machetes, and sell things unsupervised late at night. Although, at times, it has definitely been a step too far, it has taught me that human instincts are tremendously strong, and babies and children alike are usually able to fend for themselves when left to do so. Obviously this kind of attitude will result in a few more scraps and broken bones, but I think the West has taken mollycoddling to a whole new level and it's actually a bit sickening to watch how ill-behaved and spoilt rotten some children back home are these days. I can imagine as a (hopeful) mother it will be very hard to extend the leash at times, but I think it's so important for kids to try and fail than to never learn at all, and I will do my best to let them roam free and see the real world through their own eyes rather than mine, or any parents, rose-tinted glasses. Speech over.

^ A kid catching crabs with a hollowed stone.

^ Some of the local children playing a kind of "hackie sack" game with some of the guys on our boat, where the aim of the game is to kick the sack from foot to foot without letting it touch the ground.

Stop 3 was fishing. Unfortunately it wasn't "real" fishing, but it was definitely the closest that I have ever gotten! 

I was pretty devvoed not to have caught anything. There were a few false alarms, but I think mostly that it was just my line getting trapped under the boat. With my line snapped and only a few small fish to show for our group efforts, fish rapidly came off the menu (serious sad times) and chicken stepped up. We headed up to the roof to enjoy the sunset whilst the friendly boat crew prepared our BBQ dinner.

^ My crew for the day; such nice girls! The girl to the right of me was Norwegian and actually stated out loud for all to hear that Copenhagen is the best city in Scandinavia, score!

We anchored up by "Long beach" to watch the final light of the day disappear into the sea,

and swam in the orange rays of the setting sun, which I found really magical.

Once we'd finished eating a rather tasty dinner of BBQ'ed chicken and vegetable skewers with toasted bread and coleslaw with thousand island dressing, and the day had been fully plunged into darkness, with full bellies, and all rather tipsy, we jumped into the black sea to see some glowing plankton. Black moon is when they are most vibrant, as the darker the sky or surroundings the more bioluminescent they become. Still, considering it was full moon in 2 days time I was thrilled with my experience; I've never seen anything like it. As you tread water and splash your arms around, you appear to be enveloped in a cloud of bright green specks. When people started climbing the ladder back on to the boat little green blobs clung to their body until they slid off back into the water. It was absolutely amazing and a sight I really recommend all to see. The main guy leading the boat tour told us that it would be even clearer if we went swimming at 2/3am... Funnily enough I won't be doing that after a bunch of drinks and a sleepy head! Recipe for disaster, but I admire the life attitude nonetheless. 

We docked around 8pm and I felt very chuffed with my $15 spend on the day's activities, food and alcohol. I did feel cold and dirty, however, which the cold shower didn't do much to improve. Oh well, one must embrace the lifestyle! Wrapped in a hoodie a bunch of us from the boat headed to Monkey Island bar for drinks and chilled for a few hours, but when midnight came and the lights and music were shut off, I was more than happy to retreat to the comforts(?!) of my bed - I have now become somewhat of an expert at handling the rain/bed situation, curling myself into a tiny ball at one end of the bed as soon as the first crackle of thunder wakes me up and I become aware of the torrential rain due at any moment.

Friday:

I woke up at 8:30am and got up to speed on the blog. The sky was a little overcast but I was super excited as Mike, Robbie and Andrew (whom Ronnie and I travelled with for a bit) were arriving that afternoon, and Ronnie the following day. Mich and I took a pre-breakfast walk along the beachfront 

to "the Village", where the Cambodian locals reside, for a nosy around. I felt too rude to pap them in such close proximity as they do stare quite a bit, but I could not resist getting this snap, which might just steal the number 2 spot in my favourite photos so far:

I simply cannot get enough of the toddlers toddling around naked all day long, left alone to amuse themselves right on the water's edge.

I managed to get a couple of hours of decent tanning in before the boys arrived on the 3pm ferry from the mainland. Once they'd rinsed off we re-gathered in Monkey Island bar for some welcome drinks, which led to dinner being ordered, despite the fact that I had sworn to myself that I would eat somewhere else that night. I had the fresh spring rolls, which definitely didn't score high points in my fresh spring roll experiences, but at the very least were super healthy as there was literally nothing but lettuce, tomato, cucumber and a few strips of ham stuffed inside the flimsiest, stickiest rice paper that I have had to deal with yet. As midnight loomed we ventured out and walked down to the area of bars that stay open till later for some more draaanks and a proper catch up.

We bought some brownies from "Bootleg Bakery", which provided us with a slightly "uplifting" effect, shall we say. We had some great laughs before eventually calling it a night.

Saturday:

I went about my usual morning routine; wake up, hit Monkey Island restaurant for a spot of wifi and a chill, order "fruit salad with no banana", and hit the beach for tan time.

^ My breakfast 6 days in a row, which will be sorely missed upon departure.

I spent the day tanning, reading and chatting with the guys, before Ronnie arrived on the 3pm ferry. I decided to move to Coco's hostel with her so that she would not be alone, plus it was seriously nice to change things up a little! I cannot even explain how much nicer the room was at Coco's; we each had a double bed (with no leakage) and a huge amount of floor space. It was much airier as it was but the fact that they turn their electricity off around 2am also meant that we got to enjoy more fan time. Having said that, I quickly learnt that the food at Monkey Island is a million times better and cheaper, and the staff much more efficient and friendly. So each had their pros and cons in the end, and I'm glad that I got to experience both! We freshened up in a hurry to get down to the business of compulsory girly cocktails and gossip ASAP.

Seeing as it was full moon that night Koh Rong had decided to host its very own "Full Moon Party", and with a big night ahead we had a large BBQ feed to line the stomach. We both had barracuda fillet; a big juicy, fleshy, meaty piece of fish, served in a buttery, garlic sauce with sides of jacket potato, garlic bread and a small salad.

Everyone on the island was attending the party, so the vibe and atmosphere in the bars was excellent throughout the evening, with everyone being super friendly and keen to chat, mingle and dance.

The party was being held on a secluded spot on the beach, requiring a 15-minute walk through the jungle. The trek there was definitely an experience I won't be forgetting in a hurry; the path was very unclear, so we got lost a number of times, and it was rocky and muddy, with your leg sometimes sinking into wet goo up to your calf, despite the fact that the lady Ronnie and I had asked about the walk had laughed off the prospect of paying $1 to get the boat across. To be fair we had all gone in a group and had a good laugh so it was all good! We eventually found the spot, having followed the sound of music, and entered the clearing to see a fire show that everyone was ooh-ing and aah-ing about.

They played too much house music to get the party going, and their attempts at "trippy decoration" were laughable, with a random oversized jellyfish and a colourful square featured on the beach.

We had a boogie and chatted to some people but the party was more of a "beach gathering" with music not to my taste, so I held out for an hour or so but then Ronnie and I hopped on the inviting boat back to our stretch of beach. The engine on the boat was having some difficulties so the Cambodian guys turned it off a while before we docked; everyone on the boat was awe struck at how expertly they had calculated the speed and angle at which to glide the boat into the tiny space available. They really do know what they are doing regarding certain things. On a side note, they also look incredibly skinny but they are unbelievably strong!!! Anyway, having had a really great night (mostly before the actual "Full Moon Party") Ronnie and I happily passed out in our freshly made beds until sunrise.

Sunday:

It was a stunning day and the perfect first beach day for Ronnie. 

Nursing slight hangovers I had every intention to enjoy a lazy, relaxed Sunday, but plans don't always go the way that you envision! Ronnie and I made friends with a large group of Canadians (it is mad how large the proportion of travellers is Canadian; all I seem to meet is Canadians!) when we were dipping in the sea, who invited us to join them at their spot on the beach. They had bought bottles of booze and mixers and were making their own cocktails on the beach, which Ronnie got well involved in but I stayed well away from. The girls told us about "the swing", and mentioned the words "great photo opp" in the same sentence, so Ronnie and I went to check it out. We were perhaps slightly disappointed at finding "the swing", but seized the photo opp nonetheless!

As the sun began to set, and with everyone bar me pretty tipsy, we agreed to all have a clean up and meet again for dinner and drinks.

We ended up eating at Coco's, where, upon being told that my order of fresh spring rolls had been cancelled due to the kitchen having run out of rice paper, I chose a chicken stir-fry that appeared rather uninspiring, with overcooked chicken floating in a bed of oil. Ronnie got a "tapas plate", which was possibly one of the grossest and funniest things that I have seen a restaurant serve in a while, featuring 2 plain fajita wraps, a "salsa" of just large chunks of tomato, pre-packed cheese cubes sat in an unidentifiable sauce, black olives from a jar, and a dollop of what I think was meant to be hummus. Her meal went fairly untouched. Coco's has the best spot on the beach though and plays decent music, so it is always a safe bet for a good time (just not for food apparently). We chilled and enjoyed happy hour until it ended at 9pm, before bar hopping down the beach, choosing "Bunna's Place" to spend the majority of the rest of our evening. 

The music was great, the drinks strong and cheap and the Cambodian barmen crazy, having a party all of their own; what more could you want?! I played beer pong for the first time ever in my life and won the whole game, so was pretty elated at that! I had an amazingly fun night with friends both new and old, so it was the perfect last evening and send off from the island for me. 

Monday:

Check out was at 9am (how cruel) so Ronnie and I were out on the beach very early. She was feeling pretty worse for wear so we found a half shady spot where we laid our towels and caught some morning rays. I had my favourite fruit salad (oh how you will be missed) before reading and snoozing for a few hours. Mike and Andrew came and chilled with us for a bit, which was lovely, as I (for real this time) probably won't see them ever again. I hate saying goodbye to people that you grow to know and care for when travelling! I guess it's a good excuse to never stop travelling though and it is awesome to have friends all over the world that you can see when visiting their countries in future. So it was with a (slightly) heavy heart that Ronnie and I climbed aboard the 4pm ferry to Sihanoukville to catch our sleeper bus to Siem Reap. On the other hand, having spent 6 nights on the island I definitely deserve a medal and was incredibly excited to enter the world of electricity, clean rooms, hot showers, and AC once more. My darling family, I can assure you that you would not have thought that I could stay there for so long if you had seen the living conditions, so I am quite proud of myself for embracing it all and staying for longer than most people do! 

The boat journey back to the mainland went smoothly and it was actually rather picturesque looking out at the sea and several islands as the day's light disappeared and nightfall engulfed us. Ronnie and I just about had time to pick up some drinks and snacks before our bus arrived, although it wasn't quite the bus that we had been expecting! Having been told by the bus company that tickets for the regular sleeper bus had sold out, we "upgraded" (for the price of 2 extra dollars) to the "hotel bus", advertised as providing you with "your own large private room, perfect for couples; 2 full length, comfortable beds; a personal TV; a plug for charging and, naturally, wifi and a toilet were on board". There is nothing to do but laugh when things go wrong in Asia because the language barrier means that you are never going to get anywhere, but there was no "private room"; rather there was a curtain you could close beside 2 incredibly narrow beds, and no wifi or toilet. Ronnie and I settled into our minuscule spaces and watched a couple of downloaded episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" on her laptop whilst we munched on some snacks, before trying to squeeze in as much sleep as possible on what was bound to be a rough 13-hour journey. I had previously been told that the road between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap was in very poor condition, but was perhaps not expecting to wake up every 20 minutes from aggressively bouncing over rough terrain or pot holes. It wasn't the best night's sleep that I've had to say the least, but all that matters is that we got there in the end and I am glad that we did it during the night instead of wasting a precious day. Siem Reap, we have arrived.