I left my heart in Cambodia

Just kidding, it's in California. But we did have an amazing time in Cambodia. What a perfect place to be off the grid for a week. When we left Vietnam we had spent about three weeks there which was enough time for us to get acclimated to the chaos of the city life. So when we were dropped after another longer-than-expected bus/ferry excursion onto a remote island off the coast of Cambodia, I think we both let out a huge sigh of relief. No roads? No motorbikes? No power for eight hours a day? I think that will be just fine!

Welcome to Koh Rong!

Koh Rong was a little slice of paradise. The island is small with one village and one strip of bar/guesthouse duos along a beach. The rest of the island is basically untouched. The boat comes in a few times a day to ferry people to and from Sihanoukville, but other than that there really isn't much traffic. The people who live and work on the island have a far less pushy feel than others you encounter in town. (Nate got into a pretty heated argument with an angry twelve year old on the mainland when he wouldn't buy a Santa hat.)

Traffic

We opted to stay in a guesthouse tucked away in the village. Picture a big building with plywood divided rooms and two bathrooms located at the end. It wasn't anything fancy, to be sure. But it was perfect. The entrance to the building had sandbags stacked as stairs that led to a prettier, more developed common area with hammocks, friendly people, and puppies all day long. (And they weren't on the menu anymore!) We were just far enough away from the main beach that we couldn't hear the bar noise each night and close enough that we could spend each day in the waves.

4 km beach 

Just around the bend from where majority of all activity happens on Koh Rong is a long strip of white sand called 4km beach. Guess how long it is. We spent almost everyday on it, as it was worth the walk to have such a large area to ourselves. The trek took only about 15 minutes and followed a path through tree house bungalows, forest life and some local worksites. The long flat beach was a perfect spot to lay out and perfect some new yoga poses.

Crabs, crabs, crabs 

One night on our way back from 4k beach we came across an XL hermit crab scavenging through some trash. After opening our eyes a little wider we realized that they were all around us with their baseball-sized shells crawling around near the trail. So what else could we do but collect some hermits and make them complete in some sort of epic battle? We built a herm coliseum in the sand and spent the next half hour collecting around 20 giant crabs. They weren't thrilled to be on the track and when we swung the flag we learned that the walls we built weren't high enough to keep them contained so instead of a race to the finish line it became a race to see who could get away from us most quickly. Slightly different than we'd planned but still a fun little dose of sport nonetheless.

Plankton / Fire party 

One thing that Koh Rong companies boast about is the plankton tour each night. You pay for a boat to take you out for a day for snorkeling and BBQ and then they keep you until the water is dark and push you into the ocean to swim with the fishes. Er.. the plankton. To me, that sounds terrible. Deep dark ocean water is probably the very last thing I want to be swimming in. It also seemed like if all these companies can find these plankton so easily we should be able to as well for free! We did some research - correction, Nate did some research - and word on the street was that any water around the island that you see in complete darkness is full of plankton who will glow when disturbed. "It's like swimming with the stars" we heard. So back to 4k beach we went. The other word on the street that night was that at the end of 4k beach there would be an acid party. Yeah, that's a party full of folks on acid. We'll get to that part of the story later. We were hunting for plankton in at a more friendly depth. It turns out they are everywhere! Once we made it far enough away from the light we could see the plankton glowing in the edges of the waves. Swimming in the stars is right. I can't think of a better way to describe it.. When you wave your hand or foot through the water a trail of stars glistens behind. It turns out that wild glowing ocean scene from Life of Pi is actually a depiction of a real thing?! What an insanely awesome thing. We played in the surf for hours that night.

Oh yeah- about the acid party. We saw the group from across the bay while we played in the plankton but didn't join. We did use the bonfire they left behind once they took off, though and I think we had the whole 4km to ourselves.

Long beach  

On the opposite side of the island laid the aptly named Long Beach, stretching across 7 km of the island's shore. This side of the island is only reachable by boat or hike. We were glad that we opted to hike through the jungle trail because it turned out to be a fun climb! We even spotted a huge monitor lizard watching us from the trees above. We spent the whole day on the beach and took the boat back around to our side of the island after sunset.

Fire dancers in training 

If you've ever been to Thailand, you know that fire dancers are pretty common on the beach. They twirl and toss flaming sticks, num chuks, ropes, rings, sparking steel wool.... The list goes on. And these guys and occasional gal are insanely talented! In Cambodia.............. Well, let's just say they've got potential. And most still have their eyebrows. In all seriousness I think there were some aspiring fire dancers learning to do their thing on Koh Rong. They practiced during the days and performed during the nights and the crowd was warm and encouraging. Warm mostly because sometimes the fire got a little too close to the crowd, but encouraging nonetheless. My favorite part was when the guy threw up his ball of fire and it didn't come back down. We waited. Then someone yelled and the guy scrambled to get his flaming rope from its perch on the power lines. Encore!!!!

When we got back to the mainland we spent one final day at Otres beach where we rented a Catamaran and spent the day learning to sail! Way too much fun!

Halong Bay, Vietnam

One of my favorite parts about blogging is that writing about something after you've finished it forces you to remember all the fun details you might shrug off otherwise. Halong bay has been one of my favorite places to remember thus far. 

If you ever find yourself in northern Vietnam, do not miss Halong Bay! Off the northern side of Vietnam you'll find around 2000 islands that fill the bay and look like a dragon weaving in and out of the sea. Halong actually translates to something along the lines of a dragon entering the sea.. and it is aptly named. This place was definitely a huge highlight of our time in Vietnam. Absolutely picture perfect.

Halong was our first stop on our grand motorbike adventure. Feeling intimidated by the Hanoi traffic we woke up at 4am to hit the empty road. At approximately 4:05 the rain started, but at least we had the road to ourselves! 

 We got to the pier at Halong about six hours later and caught some late breakfast before our ferry to our island of choice, Cat Ba. Here we had one of my favorite breakfasts from our entire trip. A giant seafood omelet. Nate gave me a hard time about eating the entire what must have been ten eggs (kidding) but I didn't even care. We'd ridden so far already! And it was too good. I think maybe he was a little bit jealous he didn't get it. Hehe. In hindsight, I probably should have offered to share. 

Riding across Cat Ba!

When we arrived on Cat Ba it was drizzling and the town fairly vacant. A few nights prior in our party-central hostel in Hanoi our severely hungover roommates forewarned us of the wild time we'd have when we went to Halong. Drinking all day (he told us how they had beer with breakfast - ick!), lots of people, LOTS of sun, crazy, crazy, crazy. So when we arrived on a quiet island in the bay it was a bit of a surprise. What we'd find though is that it was an enormous blessing in disguise. Before we'd parked our bikes an enthusiastic man Tom ran out from a hotel to offer us a room. By this point we were used to the salesman who meets you immediately upon arrival. Intuitively our answer is always no here, we typically can find another better deal. But Tom was different. Because it was the 'low season' (mind you, three days before it wasn't low season at all) we could stay in his hotel for cheap cheap. Cheap cheap was an understatement! Tom offered us the top floor, a room which could have easily accommodated six people. The penthouse in a waterfront hotel that lent an epic view of the bay. With hot water. All for ten dollars. Sold! Can we stay forever? Tom and the hotel manager Victor became fast friends over the next few days. They even let Nate join in on a family dinner, his chance to try out a vietnamese delicacy.. It went something like this:

Victor: "A dog got hit by a car outside and he didn't survive, so we cooked him up. (Sounds legit) Want to try?"
Nate: "It's really dog?"
Tom: "No no, haha. Its actually just goat, here-try some."
Nate puts a bite into his mouth.
Tom: "I'm just kidding it's really dog!!!"
Kate: "Bahahahahahaaaa"

Lan Ha bay near Cat Ba island is THE place to kayak! A taxi boat takes you around the island to a floating town where you grab a kayak from a fisherman and get set free to paddle through the karsts. If I could have only done one thing while in Halong, this was definitely the top of my list. What better way to explore the islands than atop the water choosing your own direction? On the top of Nates list was deep water soloing, also a popular thing to do in the bay. Unfortunately the dreary weather made the latter impossible due to imperfect tides. Curse you, Poseidon. However, the misty weather meant that we'd have the entire bay to ourselves for kayaking. Fantastic. We bundled up and boarded the boat. In our kayak we could feel the heat radiating upward off the warmer-than-air sea water. I'll let the pictures do the rest of my talking here. Completely breathtaking. The most gorgeous thing we saw in Vietnam, I think.

So our trip to Halong bay wasn't a typical one but that makes it all the more significant, right?  We spent a few days in our penthouse and carried on on our country tour. Our amazing few days on the island were the perfect start to our trip down the Vietnam coast.

Our 'taxi' on Cat Ba

(We'd come to find later that the atypical start was really just the beginning to what we had coming..)