Travel Photography | 51. Paradise Island! (Koh Rong, Cambodia)

After a three hour super noisy boat ride from Sihanoukville, we were greeted with this charming little bucket to take us to the shore.

The beach was so shallow even the relatively small longtail boat couldn’t bring us closer. So, the bucket went back and forth between the pristine, snow white beach and the long tail in small groups (beer went first).

This island bliss went on 30.12.11-6.1.2012.

The water was by far the clearest I’ve ever seen!

We arrived just before the dark, which was good as there is no electricity apart from 6 pm to 9 pm in the restaurant for some fluorescent lights and for charging cell phones.

After settling in our bungalow (shared one Finn’s bungalow), we grabbed our flashlights and head to see the sunset.

The only sign this side of Koh Rong. It warns you about the dangers of the rat-race and also points to the direction of Kallio (part of downtown Helsinki, where I have lived too on many occasions), where the owner of the guesthouse, Mr Jones, is originally from.

He found the island ten years ago and has been working on this “colony of Finland” ever since. Yeah, most of the people here are Finns, which feels a little weird. I mean of all the places in the world.

Also, it kind of adds up. Summerhouse decadence for life!

Toilet by the jungle track. Incognito.

There are places for fishing and snorkelling right by the bungalows.

Witnessing a historical moment! The bar terrace expansion was finally finished, just in time for new year’s eve.

Apparently, it was a 2-year project originally started by locally hired workers and left unfinished after they took off drinking one day. Finally, the Finn’s decided to finish it by themselves.

Antti and I settled for watching and sipping Angkor in the shade.

The new year fireworks on the beach in the dark were just awesome! With good twenty people (70% Finns) we blew the beach and the bar with a pretty decent party attitude!

Nothing quite like curing the “cork flu” with a quiet day on the beach. Seriously. The sand was like snow. So fine, it even made the same squeaky sound as fresh driven snow when walking on it!

Simply add the ever clear waters and the serene scenery and you have paradise.

The only downside is the pesky little creatures called sand flies. They are smaller than needle pins and bite violently multiple times until it is unbearable to lay on the beach anymore. It takes them around one hour to find you. The bites take much longer to heal.

But they can’t stop me from going there again.

One of the restaurant tables. Everything is pretty much done "outdoors".

The menu consists of local, western and Finnish classics (the makkaraperunat FTW!!).

I Love the system based on trust over here too. You order any food and drinks (drinks you can grab by yourself from the bar or restaurant) and mark them down on a book with your name. You pay when you go. 🙂 Brilliant!

Also, running out of money is apparently common as people stay longer than intended, like us. We just paid the tuk-tuk driver by the shore upon arriving back to Sihanoukville.

Our cumulative beer count was 120. (Or 10 beers/mouth/day)

View of our bungalow with the happy camper. Hung the hammock on the terrace, enjoyed manual bucket shower and toilet.

We also had a house pet, a big ass rat (didn’t see him though), at least judging by the size of the hole he chewed on Antti’s Pringles can that was lying right next to his head while sleeping.

The bastard didn’t even eat them, probably just licked them. What a wank.

Next time we’ll remember to hang all the food from the ceiling.

The jungle path to our bungalow by daytime.

By night-time, it transformed to an unpassable, hazardous labyrinth that seemed to mysteriously change every night!

There is absolutely no chance in hell to survive without a flashlight here.

The long tail came around once or twice a day, usually bringing supplies (beer and ice mostly) and sometimes new visitors.

It was cool hanging in the beach, watching the newcomers cope with the waves in the small bucket trashing about on its way to shore.

Because there was no electricity, beer was cooled with ice only, which worked out just fine. I have probably never been so long without a connection to the Internet (since 1999).

One of the more “energetic” days we decided to hike all the way to the other end of the beach, where a fisherman village was located. It was roughly 7 km walk but with all the stops on the way, it took us three hours.

Apparently it is called the 7K beach.

Finally, we arrived, to be greeted with a warm and atmospheric village of smiling people.

We also heard they are shooting some French movie here, which was why the food was reserved for the crew.

We settled for a couple of Angkors.

Nice colours everywhere!

We decided to head back as it was only one and half hours to dark.

We got to see the nice sundown and reached our base camp just as the sun went down!

This is the only night picture I have from Koh Rong. You can probably see why. 🙂 It was simply impossible to take pictures with a phone camera in the dark.

But we did enjoy the mood the lanterns set in the bar.

After six days of pure bliss and relaxing decadence, we managed to muster the strength to move on. If we didn’t have the motorbikes on the shore running up the bill every day, we might just have stayed a little longer. Apparently many people decide to work in the bar for upkeep, which was an option we both considered.

Well, almost seriously. 🙂

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(First published 06/01/2012 at LiveJournal)

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