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!
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| 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.)
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| 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!
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