Southern Cambodia
New country, new faces, new flavors, foods and smells. After romping around Vietnam for an entire 2 months, it was a strange, yet exciting feeling to move on. From the South of Vietnam, we crossed the border at Ha Tien to Cambodia – in the coming days we had riverside water parks, white sand beaches and happy pizza to look forward to. And so the adventure began…
Kampot
One speedboat ferry, two sardine-like smushed van commutes, one túk túk, and 7 hours of traveling later, we arrived at our first Cambodian destination, Kampot!
Some friends we had met canyoning in Da Lat absolutely raved about Arcadia Hostel, nestled next to (and some parts on top of) the river. The attractive feature of this otherwise typical bamboo hut hostel was the “water park” genius-ly crafted from all wood planks, nails and mcgiver-like creativity. After an exhausting and ridiculously hot day of travel, we couldn’t wait to jump in!
Sean had his eyes on the rope swing and successfully and gracefully flew into the river, I was not so lucky and ended up with a few rope burns shortly before prematurely face-planting into the river below (mental note to work on upper body strength, check).
While at Arcadia, our days were filled with relaxing on the floating pontoon, practicing back flips, front flips, side flops off the water slide and enjoying the local Khmer curries with new friends. Our evenings were filled with ping pong battles (pretty sure I could qualify for the Chinese table tennis Olympic team), drinking a ridiculous amount of cheap Cambodian beer (Think: Bud Light, sorry Dennis…again), showing our new international pals how Americans crush it at beer pong, and dancing the night away under the shanty Christmas lights and wood shack roof.
One night we remember in particular (despite all the cerveza) was when a bet was made between our Italian friend Sara and Aussie bloke, Ian. Whoever lost an intense game of 1 v 1 beer pong, had to strip down to the great birthday suit their mama and the good Lord gave them, and run through the entire party area of the hostel.
Curveball – we didn’t know the bet existed until AFTER Ian came running in like a mad-man, butt ass naked with his long blond dreads flying all over the place, one hand fist pumping in the area, the other cupping his manly jewels. The entire place erupted with shocked, shrieking laughter as he jumped on the table and danced as if 40 pairs of eyes weren’t momentarily staring at his blindingly white cheeks…lit up like this firefly:
In other news, we took one day to explore Bokor National Park, an eerie yet captivating experience.
Why eerie?
Cambodia experienced a genocide from 1975-1979, where the Khmer Rouge Party overthrew the existing government and decided to “equalize” everyone by killing Khmer people and foreigners with a formal education, urbanites, the wealthy, famous, and more. Think doctors, lawyers, teachers, bankers, tourists, journalists, women, babies, men. We’ll detail the genocide further in a later blog post, but the acts committed in those 4 years of terror were absolutely atrocious.
Back to Bokor National Park…
When the genocide began, targeted people either fled for their lives or were imprisoned and mercilessly slaughtered. Borkor is filled with half-finished resorts, casinos, old churches and temples that haven’t been touched in 30 years. Despite the park’s breathtaking location atop a mountain with sweeping views of the valley and ocean below, the emptiness leaves you with the creepy crawlies down your spine.
One beautiful feature of the park was the waterfall, a bit minute compared to others we’ve seen.
After a few hours of romping around the buildings, we decided it was time to turn back and return our motorbikes. Unfortunately, as we started our 40-kilometer ride home, we grimly realized we had a busted tire and nowhere to fix it. What should have been a 45-minute ride turned in to nearly 2 whole hours and we bumped, thudded, and wobbled our way down the windy national park roads and eventually on the highway back to town.
As if we don’t stick out like sore thumbs enough as it is, imagine the looks on the locals faces as they pointed to a couple of whities kuh-thunking down a Cambodian highway.
We must have acquired good motorcycle karma in Vietnam because we witnessed a true miracle our tire didn’t blow out completely. The lady at the rental shop ran to us in a slight panic as we tobogganed into her driveway, shredded tire and all.
The next day we said “lea sen hy” to Kampot and mini vanned to the port of Sihanoukville, but not before a delicious breakfast at the charitable Epic Arts Cafe.
Eventually, we arrived in Sihanoukville, where the speed ferry took us the Koh Rong Island for a few days of relaxation and recuperation from our Kampot shenanigans. For the first time this entire trip, we arrived without prior researching places to stay or making a reservation.
Koh Rong Island
We stumbled off the speed ferry after a bumpy, nauseating ride through the channel, on to the pier of return riders, anxiously awaiting their return to the mainland. There is one main beachfront “village” on the island of Koh Rong, in addition to scattered and secluded resorts around the island (out of our traveler’s budget), therefore we stuck to the main budget travel area. For an hour we walked up and down the white sand beaches, “shopping” for a bungalow with the best value.
After a few hours of walking, bargaining and assessing our options, we chose this wood bungalow for $25 a night at Monkey Island. Our cozy little haven featured 1 bed, 1 mosquito net, 1 fan and battery-powered electricity, fitting the island vibe perfectly.
The main activity of our 2-day stay was a hike up and over the mountain, through the dense jungle to Long Beach, a secluded 7-kilometer beach with breathtaking views at sunset.
Take a look for yourself:
Some Aussies had been on a fishing day trip with a few locals and we’re anchored to Long Beach, also watching the sun drop below the Cambodian horizon. We hitched a boat ride back to the main village, stopping in complete darkness along the way to jump overboard and swim with bioluminescent plankton. In case you’ve never heard of these little buggers before, they’re plankton that lights up with a twinkle when you move your body around in the water, activating their luminescence. We swam around pretending to be fairies spreading fairy dust, then hopped aboard when our bodies could no longer tread water.
Sihanoukville
After our short but sweet rendezvous on Koh Rong Island, we hopped aboard the speedboat back to Cambodian mainland to check out a remote hostel, Monkey Maya.
Before flagging a túk túk to take us out to the boonies, we stopped at Top Cat Cinema in downtown Sihanoukville – an activity recommendation from our previously mentioned friend, Ian.
For entertainment on the road, we mostly stick to books we find at hostel exchanges, writing in our leather-bound journals, and listening to our newest Apple Music downloads. We’ve only seen a few movies since our departure from the USA and we were ecstatic to learn there was a cinema with private lounges where you choose a movie from a list of 6,000 plus!
To make things better, Top Cat cinema offers free Happy Pizza delivery service. What exactly is happy pizza you ask? Let’s just say Cheech & Chong would thoroughly enjoy an afternoon munching on this treat.
Top Cat is owned by a couple of mates from the UK who have an affinity for movies and THC. At the cinema, there are large rooms with bean bags for movie parties with many friends, or smaller scale lounges with a couch, pillows and a 60 inch HDTV Screen. We got cozy in one of the $2 per hour, per person lounges and ordered delivery chicken pesto pizza, “happy” of course!
Then, we began the daunting task of picking a movie from the overwhelming list of 6,000+ options! Eventually, we agree on the American version of the Korean film, Old Boy, a twisted thriller of revenge. Not recommended for those in search of a Rom-Com or the faint of heart.
Our happy pizza arrived 30 minutes into the film and we devoured every slice, ravenous for a taste of “home!” We’re accustomed to happy treats back home in Colorado taking approximately half an hour to kick in and expected the same with our pizza. When Old Boy ended and we still didn’t feel anything, we shrugged our shoulders and figured they forgot to make it happy, an extremely premature assumption.
We put on another movie, Finding Dory and within 10 minutes were rolling around with uncontrollable laughter at the animated fishies, a confirmation that our pizza was indeed, happy!
A few hours later we were en route to Monkey Maya, túk-túking our way through the Cambodia countryside, admiring the gorgeous sunset show before our eyes.
Thanks to a few recent floods, the túk túk driver was unable to drive maneuver all the way to Monkey Maya and dropped us off a mile away from the front door of the hostel and pointed into the darkness, signaling the direction we were supposed to walk in. Well, no turning back now! After much mud sloshing, ankle rolling and dirt kicking we scaled the final hill ascent. To our relief, we reached reception who popped the tops off two well-deserved welcome beers!
The next two days were spent exploring our private white sand beach, night swimming in complete darkness with bioluminescent plankton, eating the delicious meals prepared by the Khmer staff, and relaxing in the comfy cushion nest chairs curled up with a great mystery novel, most recently The Roy Grace Series by Peter James.
After a few days spent off the grid, we decided it was time to venture back to civilization and continue our Southeast Asia Adventure, Cambodia edition.
Some final thoughts and words of advice as we wrap up this post. Always check the beds when traveling for microscopic friends called bed bugs….
Or be prepared to spend a few days quarantining all your clothes (Freeze all your clothes or place them in direct sunlight in black trash bags) and trying not to itch the dozens of bites that cover your body.
Sincerely,
Your Itchy Friends
“The best things in life are often waiting for you at the exit ramp of your comfort zone.”
-Karen Salmansohn
