I stayed at a place called “Khmer Hands” for my two nights
in Kep. It was owned by a man in his
late 50s or early 60s named Chris and his Cambodian wife, whom I never formally
met. Chris originates from southern California
but has been in this country for at least 12 years and has a few kids with his
Cambodian wife. They started off small
with the place but they built it up over time and now have 10-12 huts and
bungalows and a restaurant. Hats off to
them as it was quite a nice place.
The restaurant at Khmer Hands.
My bungalow.
On my full day in Kep, I rented a scooter to ride around the
area and check out Kep National Park. I
first stopped at the local fish market.
Kep is known for crab, as there seems to be an abundance of it in the
waters nearby. Squid as well.
That's one big squid...by the fisherman's market.
The fish market.
This woman's trap is filled with crabs...some are pretty small, but there were a lot in there.
Some squid in a styrofoam cooler...that didn't look very cool.
Looking back from the end of the market. The hills are part of the Kep National Park, where I drove to next.
These look like manatees...but I wouldn't have thought that they lived around here.
A nice beach by town. That's a statue of some mermaid-looking woman.
Kep is famous for its crabs...especially it's big statue of one.
I drove around the peninsula and then found the entrance to
the national park, which was technically the exit, not that it seemed to matter. It cost all of $1 US to enter and although
cars couldn’t drive in, you could ride your scooter around the 8-kilometre narrow
road that ran up and around the mountainous area to the actual entrance, which
was on the side of the mountain range where my guesthouse was. There was the occasional gap between the
trees that provided a nice view.
Scootering up the small mountain in Kep National Park.
A viewpoint, which when you visit by yourself, tought to get a picture with you in the heart.
I rode from the exit to the entrance without stopping much
and then backtracked and checked out the odd viewpoint including a lookout
tower. There was the odd hiking trail
that branched off from the paved road, but I took a look at one, and it looked
quite overgrown and steep, so I didn’t bother.
That was pretty much it for my scooter tour of Kep.
Looking out to the ocean.
A little coffee stop area with a few "Insta-pose" places like a swing looking out to the ocean.
Really hard to see in this pic, but in the middle on the horizong is Phu Quoc Island of Vietnam, which Naomi and I visited.
A lookout tower just a two minute walk off of the main road. And it wasn't to spot forest fires which most "lookout towers" are used for in Canada, it was actually just to "look out".
I stopped at a little cafe/restaurant by the ocean to catch up on a few emails.
I should have photographed these earlier when I passed by before going into the national park when they were occupied. There were two or three rows of these shelters that were used by families for picnicking. It is across the road from the nice sandy beach, but what a great idea!
A Vishnu roundabout (at least I think it's supposed to be Vishnu).
I stopped to take a photo of this seemingly overloaded motorbike tuk tuk with too many things to sell...but the the yellow Lab came out to say hello to me.
That evening, I walked back down to the fish market where there
were some restaurants on the waterfront.
I had to try some kind of crab dish and opted for curried crab. It was pretty good, but it didn’t blow my
mind. I had a nice conversation with a
couple of Austrian women at the table next to me and then walked back to the
guesthouse.
It was a gorgeous sunset.
Hard to see here, but it's setting over Phu Quoc Island.
On the walk back to my bungalow, I stopped at a store and outside they had these poor guys in cages. They were making all kinds of interesting sounds, some of which were like they were talking. Poor birdies locked up.
Tomorrow I have an easy journey to Kampot, just 45 minutes
away, to spend a couple of nights.
The slow boat ferry from Koh Rong to Koh Rong Samloem was
supposed to leave at noon. There was a
ticket office and I spoke to the lady there, but I had booked my ticket online
with a different company so she wasn’t totally sure when my boat would arrive. She said 12:15, not 12 like my ticket said,
but 12:15 rolled by, then 12:30…12:45.
And the weird thing was that I seemed to be the only Westerner on this pier
waiting for a ferry, which was odd.
There were a couple of other piers, but I was quite sure that I had the
right one.
Leaving Koh Touch Beach.
Thankfully a boat that resembled the one on my ticket
puttered from around the corner of Long Beach and docked at my pier. I got
on the boat along with a local and one other tourist. It was a nice, but slow and loud boat ride. The first mate kept lifting up the wooden
cover and pouring water into some part of the diesel engine which didn’t
instill confidence in it. Even worse was
when the captain came out and descended below deck with a wrench in his hand…but
we made it. We first pulled into the
first beach, and just like my arrival to Koh Rong, most tourists disembarked
(about 12 out of 15). Huh. I was quite sure that I was going to the
bigger, more popular beach, so did the English couple who stayed on with me.
The slow ferry boat.
Heading south and following the shoreline, we entered a bay
with Saracen Beach, where I would be staying for the next 2 nights. Just like on Koh Rong, it was a gorgeous, sandy
beach and looked like a lovely place to hang out for a bit. The boat docked at a concrete pier, about 1.4
kilometres away from where I was staying.
I had previously read that there were no cars on the island, but there
were some tractors. I did see one hooked
up with a trailer with bench seats on it, but it was parked and I didn’t see a
driver. I wanted to walk anyways.
Hello Koh Rong Samloem!
I was staying at the Onederz Hostel, and it would be the
first time on this trip that I was actually staying in a dorm room! Southeast Asia is relatively cheap for
Westerners and perhaps it’s just me getting older as I seem to be preferring to
have my own room whenever possible.
Reception at Onederz Hostel.
The hostel turned out to be quite nice. It had a decent restaurant/bar, a nice beach
area to hang out at, and really good bunkbeds.
They were solid steel and didn’t creak or move much when you got in and
out of bed. I requested a lower bunk and
thankfully got one, plus they had a privacy curtain.
The restaurant at the hostel.
This "tractors" move goods and people up and down the beach and across the island.
I didn’t do too much on my stay on Koh Rong Samloem apart from relax, catch up on some blogging and some postcard writing. I didn’t even bother walking inland as they were just dusty roads for the tractors. I heard of a few guys walking half an hour to see sunset, but I just wasn’t bothered. I’ve seen hundreds of sunsets where the sun dips straight into the ocean during my time in India.
A beautiful evening.
The hostel at night.
The second day was windy in the morning and early afternoon
but then tapered off. However, in the
middle of the night, the wind was howling.
A loose piece of corrugated steel on the roof near my room kept slamming
up and down, waking me up occasionally.
Another gorgeous day on the beach.
I went for lunch at a spot down the beach called Sara's Resort. A little fancier than the hostel...they even had a pool.
My work station during lunch and the early afternoon.
The second evening at the hostel.
The angry sea in the morning of my departure.
In the morning, I was supposed to take a ferry back to the
mainland, but it was cancelled. I was
told there would be another one at 10:45.
A bunch of backpackers and I hopped on the wagon with a two-wheel tractor
and we headed inland as the waves were coming right up to the buildings on the
beach. It was an interesting ride as all
of the luggage was stacked up in the middle of the trailer and we were sitting
along the edge with our legs dangling over the side. It felt like it wouldn’t take much of a bump
in the road for a few people to fall off.
Getting off of the tractor to walk up a steep hill.
At the pier, about a hundred tourists milled about in an
open-air building near the end of the concrete dock, waiting for a boat to
arrive. One finally did, and everyone
put on backpacks, grabbed their luggage and moved closer together towards the
doorway, but it wasn’t the right one for almost everyone. A ferry showed up after 12 and everyone herded
together again, in a chaotic line, if you could call it that. The catamaran boat was probably 100 feet long
but it didn’t look big enough to fit everyone, so I tried to make sure I wasn’t
near the back of the queue…and luckily I did that. When I got on the ferry, I just missed
getting the last seat but it seems like I was going to be able to stay onboard. There must have been at least 30 people
standing in the aisles, yet they still seemed to be loading more people on the ferry.
Heading out on the pier.
Not sure about this...standing in the aisle in the big seas with no where near enough lifejackets visible.
Finally, the doors were closed, and we started to pull away
from the dock. I could see that there
were still tourists standing on the dock.
Whew, I made it. Looking around the
boat, only about 10% of the seats had lifejackets on them. Hmm…where are the rest? And surely there wouldn’t be enough anyways
since we were overloaded.
It didn’t take long to know that this was going to be a wild
ride. We were heading straight into the
wind, plowing right into the oncoming waves that were probably 10-15 feet tall,
although that is hard to judge. Everyone
standing up was using both of their hands to hold on to the backs of seats,
poles or whatever there was to stable yourself.
The boat started to ride up a crest and slam down in the trough. There was the odd scream from passengers and
it didn’t take long until we had some pukers.
In fact, just around my area, within 20’, I counted 20 people throwing
up.
Sorry for the sideways video, but I started it while holding onto the back of a seat and then turned it. I could barely keep my balance without both of my hands holding on a seat on either side of me. This video doesn't do it justice, but you do see one pretty good slam down into the trough of a wave.
I was actually glad to be standing up, and near the front of
the boat. I could anticipate the big
waves as I could see them coming and then use my legs as shock absorbers. I started chatting with the woman standing in
front of me and she was from Colorado and teaches nursing. It was a good distraction from what was going
on around me and wondering if the boat was going to make it. I was quite sure that it would, but I have to
say it was definitely one of the craziest boat rides I’ve ever been on!
We can see the skyscrapers of Sihanoukville...getting closer.
We made it!
As we approached Sihanoukville, the size of the waves decreased
as the wind was coming from the mainland.
Just after we docked, I helped lead an applause and cheer for the
captain, who was right near me. It was
well deserved.
The tail end of the applause for the captain.
I was headed to a small town called Kep next, about 2½ hours
from the port.I couldn’t understand why
it was going to take that long as it was less than 90 kilometres away…then I
found out.Most of the way was an unpaved,
very bumpy road where we crawled along at 15-20 km/h at times.I finally arrived at my guesthouse at 6 pm,
about 5 hours later than I should have…but at least I made it!
This morning, I was taking a bus (van) from Phnom Penh to
Shihanoukville (named after a former king of Cambodia) and then a ferry to Koh Rong (“koh” means
island). It was a bit tense in the
morning as I took a tuk tuk to the address of the bus company, and I should
have left the hotel 15 minutes earlier, but according to the Grab app, I would
arrive 9 minutes before the 9:45 departure time. However, as we arrived at the designated
location, all that I could see was a hospital on one side of the road, and a
garage on the other. Thankfully, after
showing my online ticket to the driver, he turned around and drove around the
corner and located the transport company’s office. Whew.
If I had had to walk around aimlessly, looking for the bus, I likely
would have missed it.
Four hours later, we arrived in Sihanoukville (named
after a former Cambodian king), and it was a bit of a weird city. There is/was quite a Chinese presence there
which was obvious from the number of signs written in Mandarin. Strangely there are a number of partially completed
or abandoned 10-20 storey buildings that were were just concrete shells. Later I found out that Chinese investors had
poured money into the place pre-Covid, turning it into a 24-hour gambling mecca. Unfortunately for them, a ban on gambling by
the Cambodian government caused most investors to pull out.
The small ferry left an hour later for the 45-minute ride to
the island. The boat stopped at Long
Beach, where the majority of the passengers disembarked. It made me wonder if I booked a place at the wrong
beach! It did look a lovely, sandy,
semi-crescent shaped beach. Oh well, it is
what it is.
Waiting at the ferry terminal in Shinahoukville.
Five minutes later we arrived at the tiny town on a beach
around the corner called Koh Touch. It
was smaller and looked more densely packed with buildings and people than Long Beach,
but it still looked decent. My accommodations
were only 400 meters from the pier, but it took me a little while to find it as
there wasn’t a sign for it. As often
happens, the pictures of my bungalow on Booking.com certainly seemed different
than reality…but the place will do for three nights.
Arriving on Koh Rong, specifically Koh Touch beach.
The view from my little bungalow. That's Koh Rong Samloem in the distance, where I will go to in a few days.
My place is the one in the middle at the back. They were interesting...with full floor to ceiling windows on three sides,
Walking down to the beach.
Koh Touch beach.
I went out for dinner at a place called Coco’s and chatted with
an Aussie guy in his late 50s or early 60s who was sitting at the table next to
me on the beach. He was married to a
Cambodian woman who was off buying some seafood for their dinner. He stated that it costs a lot more if he’s
present during the purchase. Without him,
she gets the “local price”. Meanwhile, I
enjoyed a good, wood-fired thin crust pizza before retiring.
For my first full day on the island, I decided to walk the three
and a half kilometres over to Long Beach.
The first kilometre was a dusty road, and I had a few passing tuk tuks
check to see if I wanted a ride as it was hot, and they wanted business, but I
wanted to get some exercise. Getting
onto pavement made the walking more pleasant and the reward was worth it as it
was a gorgeous beach. I had some lunch
and hung out for the afternoon before taking a motorcycle taxi back. I did have to haggle from an initial price of
$15 US, down to $10 and eventually $5…which was still too much but I wasn’t
going to sweat it over a few bucks.
Walking towards Long Beach.
Getting there...
A little mangrove swamp area.
Long Beach was lovely.
Hard to see unless you zoom in, but there's a guy on a Flyboard just to the left of the boats.
The "fancy accommodations" on Long Beach.
Outside of the Onederz Hostel...lots of people lounging about. Sadly, most of them were scrolling on their phones. Onederz is a chain of of 4-5 hostels and I'll be staying with them on Koh Rong Samloem in a few days.
Evening Karaoke on Koh Touch Beach.
The next day I rented a scooter to check out more of the
island. Apart from the initial dusty bit
by Koh Touch, the rest of the roads were nice pavement. In the middle of the island, the land has
been cleared of trees in preparation for an international airport, which will be
Cambodia’s fourth airport. I imagine the
island’s tourism will increase a lot once that’s completed.
I woke up early to see sunrise...I just need to get a phone with a better camera, even though this looks pretty trippy.
My steed for the day...it was a fancy scooter that wouldn't start if the kickstand was down.
Starting to head across the island.
Where an airport is being build in the middle of the island.
The road signs were terrible on the island. How close do you need to get to be able to read that?!?
Looks like a recently built temple as there was still some construction going on.
At the north end of the island, the paved road finally
ended. Backtracking half a kilometre, I
decided whether to take a sandy/dusty road to “Lonely Beach”. Reading some reviews online, the road was not
for beginners on a scooter…and it was right.
About 500 meters down the road there was a section with deep sand. I took a line to the right that detoured around
that part but coming the other way were a couple of Russians, driving way too
fast, and the first one bailed into the sand.
He wasn’t hurt, but I think out of embarrassment, he got up super quickly
and got back on the bike.
A desolated beach near the north end of Koh Rong.
A small wooden bridge crossed a little river with some
locals hanging out at what I would describe as a shanty bar. A little further on, the “road” narrowed to a
path and there was a sign saying that no cars should continue past that
point. In the odd spot along the route,
a plank of wood had been strategically placed to make it easier for a bike to make
it through.
The start of the challenging "road" to Lonely Beach.
Arriving at a covered parking area for scooters, I stopped
the bike and contemplated whether to continue to the beach. On one online review I had read, the writer
mentioned that if you made it that far, you could make it to the beach. However, there were signs stating no bikes beyond
that point, so I decided to park as to not piss off the locals.
You may wonder why I titled this entry “What could Koh Rong?”. Well, mainly for the pun, but I had about 15 minutes
of “trouble time” here. The scooter was
a newer, modern one that requires a FOB.
As long as it is within 1.5 meters of the bike, you can start it. I turned the ignition dial off and then attempted
to turn it to the position to pop the seat to put my helmet inside. The dial wouldn’t move at all. I tried all kinds of things, even pressing
buttons on the FOB, but nothing worked.
Meanwhile, there was another couple who were trying to leave
on their rented scooter but the main kickstand, that runs under the bike from
one side to the other, was stuck in a partial down position. It was low enough that they wouldn’t have been
able to navigate the bumpy path out of here.
Seeing them struggle, the man who owned the place came over and tried to
help. He got a hammer and smashed at it,
which didn’t help. After 3-4 minutes however,
he was somehow able to get it retracted and they headed on their way.
I put up my hand and said “Sostei” (hello), and asked if he
could help me. He hardly spoke any
English, but it wasn’t difficult to show him my issue. He tried all sorts of things, mostly what I
had already tried…to no avail. He then
said “Phone” (the owner). Damn. When I rented the bike at Koh Touch, at the
other end of the island, I had asked the guy if he had WhatsApp and he said, “Don’t
worry, I’m always here”, thinking that my worry was whether I would find him
when I returned. There was no sticker on
the bike with a number. Oh dear, I could
be screwed. I didn’t even have a phone
number for the place I was staying at…
Luckily, the man fiddled around for a few more minutes and he
got the ignition switch to turn.
Whew. Crisis averted. I thanked him profusely. “Arkoun, arkoun, arkoun.” Tried to off him 5000 riels ($1.25 US), but
he declined. I walked over to his wife
who was the money collector for the parking fee of 2000 and insistently gave
her the 5000.
I started to walk and saw a sign stating 1 kilometre to Lonely
Beach. It was a lovely walk through the
forest and when I arrived at the beach. I was stunned, it was spectacular…like being
stranded on a stereotypical desert island!
In fact, I later learned that an episode of the French version of
Survivor was shot on this island (but not specifically this beach). Nearby there was one couple sitting in the
lovely turquoise water and further down the beach I could see three other
people swimming. Other than that, it was
quiet. I strolled up and down the beach
but decided that it was time to find some lunch.
That difficult to see hanging sign says "Lonely Beach".
Some rudimentary buildings as part of the Lonely Beach Resort.
It was a pristine beach.
Lovely Lonely Beach.
Like a deserted island.
A few people heading to their huts...they did like quite basic.
Gorgeous!
The restaurant at this Lonely Beach rustic resort was set
back from the ocean, so I decided to take a chance and walk back a fork right
at the start of the path near the parking, and head to another restaurant
called Lily’s. I was happy with my decision. It was a new, also rustic place but it had a
little restaurant close to the water, with a friendly Spanish man as the waiter. From what I gathered, he was helping family
or a friend and had only been there three days, but he was a good server. It was kinda nice to get some Western-like,
prompt service.
Even though there was no electricity, amazingly I was able
to tether my laptop to my phone and order some paragliding equipment and answer
some emails from this remote location!
It was definitely a different walk to Lily's Guesthouse/Restaurant than to Lonely Beach as the coconut trees were planted in a grid, and there wasn't that much shade from the sun.
A hut at Lily's.
The tiny restaurant bar.
It was a lovely spot.
This was an amazing place to be doing some work. I ordered some paragliding gear for clients from this spot.
I took a slightly different route to get back to Koh Touch
so that I essentially circumnavigated the island, as best as the roads would
allow.
As I was scootering back, this building, which was for some Chinese land development caught my attention. I looked up at the dragon statues as I motored down the road from the right side of this picture. I didn't even see the road had split to the left and I wasn't supposed to continue straight. I was about to pass in front of this building and at the last second I saw this thin black and faded yellow striped boom barrier (a gate you can raise to let vehicles through). I stopped about 3 feet before it, and the bar was at the height of my neck...I could have been decapitated or at least crush my larynyx had I not seen it at the last second.
I saw over 10 of these red roofed, abandoned homes along the road...not sure what the story is about them.
Almost back to Koh Touch.
There's Koh Rong Samloem, where I will go tomorrow.
Riding back into Koh Touch.
I enjoyed my stay on this island and my next stop with be
Koh Rong Samloem, which my current bungalow faces.It is a quieter and less developed island
with no cars on it…should be interesting.
