Short Visit to Koh Rong Samloem

While in the south of Cambodia (although similar in SOME ways, certainly NOT to be confused with the South of France), we decided to pay a short visit to one of the islands in the gulf of Thailand. Two main options, Koh Rong, and Koh Rong Samloem. The former, a hippy party central, the latter, a hippy chill station… we chose the latter.
$20 per adult got us a return trip on the “Speed Ferry”. It took 40 mins to get to the island, then we were stop #3. M’Pei Bay, a little fishing village, with a nice stretch of white sandy beach. Only accessible by boat (obviously), Koh Rong Samloem is about 8KM’s due WSW from Sihanoukville. No roads on the island, but the different inhabited areas are accessible by “trekking” through the jungle… Many people start off attempting to make the 40min trek to the next area, but often get lost and end up spending 3hrs, only to return to their original location. We weren’t planning to stay long enough to want to attempt.
Our new temporary home was a bamboo and straw hut, about 50 meters from the beach. It had 2 beds with mosquito nets overhead, a fan, and our own private bathroom. We had heard that the power on the island was only for 4 hrs per day (between 6-10pm), but were elated to discover that that was not the case. The fan running during the night was crucial!

We spent our time here doing what everyone goes there to do…just relaxing! We chilled at the beach which was a short walk down the coast. It was perfect white sand, that lead into crystal clear water. In the afternoon (low tide) the water level dissipated slightly, leaving large floating sand bars which Ellie and Isabel used for their “sand fortress”.

In the evening we joined some of the hippies for a bond fire with a “fire show” put on by some of the locals…basically they had batons they lit on fire at each end, twirled them, flipped them, and tossed them up in the air. Before seeing the fire show we had noticed a lot of the local kids with batons or sticks in their hands flipping and twirling them around, we hadn’t thought too much about it, but apparently they can make some decent money doing the fire shows, so all the kids are always practicing with a stick. The fire show actually kept the girls quite occupied, and allowed Lisa and I to chat with some of the other travellers… it was nice to have 45mins with both the girls occupied by something other than us!

We watched the sunset, ate fresh fruit (the best mango, dragon fruit, pineapple, and watermelon), and just enjoyed each other, it was terrific!

It was in the middle of the week, and Lisa was concerned about work, so we only stayed the one night (because of the terrible internet connection)…deciding to catch the last boat back to mainland the next day. Well we were waiting for the boat we had lunch on the beach and fit in some school work well Lisa snuck in some work. When we got to the boat we looked at each other and thought… did we just make a mistake getting on this boat! It was quite calming sitting by the beach doing school lessons, and working that we actually saw ourselves thinking we could have stayed much longer! Really, it would have been nice to spend 2-4 nights at each of the destinations on the island, to fully experience Koh Rong Samloem.

When the boat arrived, we did a double take, as it looked like a lifeboat from the sunken Titanic. Once we boarded, the engine gave out, lol, and we idled for about 30mins. We saw a brand new speed boat (not ferry) approach. The cost for a 1 way to the mainland, $5 (sigh). So we anti’d up, and before we knew it, our island adventure was over.