Koh Rong has probably the most beautiful beaches I will ever see in my entire life. Seriously. The pictures do not do it justice, although of course I will post them anyway.
To get there you can take one of several ferries from Sihanoukville. I took a different boat from my friends just because of where I was staying and timing etc, so didn’t meet up with them right away. Instead, I wandered the beach and eventually found some wonderfully cheap accomodation at a quaint little place called Mango Bay…now I’m being a little sarcastic here because basically it was the only dorm I could find, my backpack was heavy and it was hot as hell so I decided to ignore the pervasive aroma of certain herbs and at least try one night. Good choice! A few cool people in my dorm and I headed out for dinner not long after that, and we ended up grouping together with my booze cruise friends and some other people.
As a group of about 10, we set off the next day for the other side of the island, which we’d heard was absolutely amazing. We could luckily leave our big bags at our hostels but off we trekked with smaller bags and tents for camping on the amazing beach. $5/tent, for two people= cheapest accommodation I’ve had this trip!
My first jungle trek was, thankfully, not too long but the rocky drop on the other side actually required clinging on to a sturdy rope for dear life and practically abseiling down. Wow, I was not prepared for that and my legs were sore for a couple days after! We were also all sweating buckets by the end, so gladly jumped into the crystal clear water immediately upon arrival.
Suntanning, sunburning, sunlounging, sun-drinking etc etc ensued. The only toilets were locked for the guesthouse guests only and the one restaurant”you can see in my pictures was, to say the least, simple. But it was all we needed.
Sadly, the heat or possibly some kind of bug got to me and around mid-afternoon I started feeling pretty badly. I think we decided in the end it was sunstroke, I was drinking plenty of water but possibly Gatorade would have been better…still not sure but anyway, I stuck to the shade mostly and still got a couple of swims in.
After watching the gorgeous sunset, a bonfire was set up and the evening began. I tuckered out at about 9, I think, with a fever, giant headache and a very troubled stomach. Damn.
The next morning I was on the mend, managed another swim and a couple cookies and still managed to enjoy the fact that I was on a beautiful beach in Cambodia with some really cool people. But I was a bit eager to get back to the other side of the island.
Luckily, no one seemed up for trekking back, so we all pitched in to hire a boat. It was a lovely ride of about 25 minutes and we were back at the main area. We were all so tired we decided to stay one more night on the island, instead of leaving that day as planned. I was back in form by then so had a great night playing beer pong, flip cup and an interesting German drinking game we learned called Flunky Ball (sp?). For those interested to learn all you need is 2 giant water bottles and a coconut...Canadian friends are you up for the challenge?!
