Sihanoukville and Koh Rong

After the end of our Laos trip, John, Sherene, and I flew back to Siem Reap and then on to Sihanoukville, a coastal city on the Gulf of Thailand. Sihanoukville had quite a seedy reputation for a while (and some areas still do) but there are some brightening spots. Otres Beach is the quietest beach, it's pretty clean. Secluded, big buses can't get there, so you'll need to get a car or tuk tuk. We stayed at Moorea Beach, which was really nice. Decent but basic bungalows right on the beach, great food, decent prices. The water is beautiful but very calm, so it's not the most fun for swimming, etc. But they do have wind surfing, kayaking, etc. And the sunsets...

I have never seen as many stars as I did on a clear night on Otres Beach.

Later on I had another chance to head down to the ocean. This time we took a sleeper bus to Sihanoukville, and then a tuk tuk to a travel office, and then a bus to the dock, and then a long boat trip out to the island of Koh Rong. It was worth it.

I didn't take my camera out on the boat for fear of it getting wet. We'd heard there were sand flies on Koh Rong (spoiler alert, there are...) so Diane's sister made a concoction of different things believe to keep them away, and put it in a contact lens bottle that we used to spray it on ourselves. It was pretty ridiculous looking, but better safe than sorry (spoiler alert, I still got bit).

We stayed at a place at the very end of the beach with treehouses and bungalows. Unfortunately, they lost my original booking, and when I called back the week before to reconfirm, I ended up rebooking, but they screwed that up so we ended up having to split who got the treehouse each night. It was fine though, because we had a great time. The beach was private, and they had kayaks to rent. Phil and I took advantage and kayaked out to another little island and around a bit, and found some amazing shells, including large clam shells which now sit on our table.

It rained a bit while we were there, but we enjoyed some time just reading and playing cards. We also had a giant gecko in our bungalow at one point!

For food, most guesthouses have kitchens, but selection can be limited to what has been brought over on the boat for the day. Several places do AMAZING beach barbecues in the evening.

On one clear day, Phil and I decided to hike to the other side of the island. This was no small feat. I didn't realize what I was getting into, and headed out in my bikini, a pair of shorts, and flip flops. The trip takes you through a village, up over the top of the island, through the jungle, down rock cliffs and areas where you literally have to climb a rope to get up and down...we were drenched in sweat by the time we got to the other side. You start to hear and smell the ocean long before you get there.

On our original side of the island

A forest encounter on our way up to the top

This side of the island (the gulf of Thailand side) has an amazingly wide stretch of beach. You can walk into the water really far because it's shallow for a big stretch of it. We got some drinks and hung out in the surf. A few sandflies, though. After a few hours we hiked back to the other side.

View from the way back down

I highly recommend visiting the islands, there's a few of them that are still quite undeveloped, though there are some deals going through so that won't be the case forever.