Koh Rong Samloen & Phnom Penh

So we've been a bit slack with the blog and have a wee backlog to clear, so I'll be a bit more concise hopefully. This is the second half of our stay in Cambodia.

20th to 27th February 2017

This was the finish of our epic 17 hour journey from Siem Reap to the island of Koh Rong Samloen. We had a good overnight bus with lie-flat beds to Phnom Penh, (well, I slept well, Frank needed a few lazy island days to recover apparently), and then switched to a mini-bus to Sihanoukville. Then we fended off the obligatory hordes of Tuk-tuk drivers and sweated our way 800 metres to the pier and extremely welcome sea breeze. [F - The overnight bus dropped us to Phnom Penh at 4.00am. While we waited for the mini-bus we had plenty of time to people watch. Nearby were a family of four, with two early teenage aged daughters. They were trying to get a tuk tuk to their hotel. As usual the tuk tuk driver took his chances and quoted a higher price US$10. Dad was clearly determined not to be overcharged so he said no and got the family to sit down at a table, outside in the rain, as a negotiating tactic. The tuk tuk driver went away. After a bit of a wait he came back US$8? Dad had the most smug self satisfied look on his face as he glanced over at Mum to confirm they should lock in the reduced price. The look Mum gave him, after he had made the family sit out in the rain at 4.00am for the sake of $2, should have turned him to ash.] 

Breakfast on the go in Phnom Penh

The ferry with good reviews was booked out, so we went with the one that was notorious for overbooking and having standing room only boats or leaving people behind. Sure enough, we ended up standing at the back of the boat getting blasted with spray.

Hebe was really upset with this arrangement.

The ferry first went to the busier island, Koh Rong, where everyone on our boat except the three of us were going. I had to climb out and convince them to load our bags back on to the boat and take us to where we were actually supposed to be going. [F - Koh Rong Samloen was a great little island. There was a "main road", actually the sandy beachfront where most of the hostels and restaurants were located. Then there were little tracks back from the beach towards the centre of the island which headed towards the villages where the locals lived. With no roads as we know it, it was pretty impressive seeing people manhandle scooters laden with bags of concrete, ice and other supplies through the soft sand to get to where they needed to go.]

I was pleased to be on the island.

The next four days we basically lounged around doing nothing, while Hebe went on adventure swims and short walks and I snorkelled several hundred metres to Snake Island and explored it and then was massively sunburned and stayed inside/ in the shade for the next week. We mostly stayed in a small concrete jail cell/ bunker furnished with two beds, a fan, and a  bathroom with no door. (note lack of mozzie nets, windows or walls that reached the ceiling). Eh, it was $12 a night and you weren't indoors much anyway. (unless you got mega-sunburned...)

Photos of island life

Intense game of checkers

Sunset view from the checkers table. We came back to this place a number of times...

Comfy chairs acquired, smoothies were drank and books were read.

"There's no frigging place to hang anything in this shithole of a room" so off to do some productive beach-combing.

Arts and crafts success!

Some of us couldn't cope with the isolation very well.

I dealt with it by recreating Renaissance paintings.

Frank with enormous breakfasts at one of the two (!) Turkish restaurants on our tiny Cambodian island village.

Frigging squeaky fan kept us awake until I fixed it. Honestly the hotel should have been paying me to stay there.

View from the pier. Not pictured: tons of fish easily visible just below.

And it was finally time to leave, to share my newly created island fashions with the world.

Not pictured: 

Epic thunder and lightning storm one night. Hebe and I went out to experience the storm. I nearly got blown off the pier, and a tree was blown down onto the path in the few minutes between the two of us following it to the sunset bar so we could watch the fishing fleet in the bay scurrying back and forth as they dragged anchor towards the rocks, lit up by enormous sky-wide blasts of cloud lightning every few seconds and half-deafened by the thunder and wind.

The other people on our boat back to the mainland who got left behind due to not enough room on the boat. Hope they didn't have a flight to catch...

Phnom Penh

Then we were on the bus back to PP for Hebe to fly back to real life. We had noodles made in front of us for tea, wandered around the museum in the morning, and sent her on her way. The next morning we sent our passports away to get visas for Vietnam, and had a sobering day touring around the killing fields and old torture prison site of the Khmer Rouge (who killed a quarter of the population when they took power in the 70's). It's crazy to think that they were still killing people and being backed by the US as the legitimate government of the country in my lifetime, and the current ruler of the country is an ex Khmer-Rouge leader as well...

We decompressed from that with NZ-quality burgers (I've decided to embrace eating western food on the occasions when I can get it at decent quality, I'm too old to be ashamed of not being 100% authentic.) The next morning, we hopped on another bus to take us across to Ho Chi Minh City (nee Saigon).