Category: Cambodia

We decide to take refuge in Kep, a small coastal town about 30 km from the border. Irish found really nice accommodation: Atmaland resort in Kep national park. We have a roomy bungalow in the middle of a beautiful garden full of bright flowers, exotic trees and wild birds. There are also plenty of mango trees everywhere, dripping delicious fruit that nobody cares to pick up.

After many emails back and forth, the visa company promises to issue an e-visa for Irish by tomorrow 12pm.  We book a second night in Birds of Paradise, a resort just down the road. Actually, if it wasn’t for our flights back departing from Ho Chi Minh, we wouldn’t have bothered with coming back to Vietnam. We spend the next day exploring Kep. An English couple living in Phnom Pen and holidaying in Atmaland kindly let us use their scooter for the day. We zoom around the National Park. Good views but no wild animals spotted.

Kep is the Crab capital of Cambodia, so we then zoom down to the Crab market. We’ve never seen so many crabs and seafood in both our lives!

Kep turns out to be a great place to visit, mainly a Cambodian seaside resort with very few foreign tourists around.

The promised visa arrives on my phone at 12pm on the dot so we zoom again downtown in search of a printing shop before heading to Birds of Paradise. This is a much less posh resort run by an eccentric English man Steven and his Cambodian wife. We are the only guest there. Not very surprising as the place looks more like an animal rescue centre than a resort. The main living area is occupied by cages with various animals, blind cats, three legged dogs, one-wing parrots etc…Mangy animals might not be everyone’s taste comments Irish.

Our Cambodian style bungalow has no Aircon. Despite two big fans, it doesn’t cool down during the night. We don’t really sleep well. Irish is thinking about all the abundant snakes and scorpions around that Steven described in great detail. Frenchie is worrying about having to cross the border again in the morning.

Next morning, we are picked up by the same minibus company. I’ve got butterflies in my stomach thinking of Herr Flic, the Vietnamese border officer.  Anyway, Irish hands in her passport and brand new visa. It’s a yes! She’s through. But when it comes to Frenchie’s passport, Herr Flic asks: where is your visa? If eyes could kill, he’d be dead and buried by now. I tell him, as he said exactly two days ago, I don’t need a visa. Finally, after more grilling from Herr Flic, I’m allowed in.

It is finally time to return to Vietnam and head off to its biggest island: Phu Quoc. Phu Phoc is not that far from Koh Rong. As you can see on the map, it is actually mostly located in Cambodian waters. However you need to cross the border to Vietnam at Ha Tien in order to get there. We prepare ourselves for a tortuous trip of several minibuses, tuk tuks, taxis, ferries and the inevitable border walk. We set off at 7.30 am and should be getting to our final destination by 10.30 pm. The first 100km in Cambodia, from Sihanouk to Kampot takes more than 2 hours because of the bad roads. We even get a free sauna on account of failing air con. Our little group of chattering backpackers eventually sinks into a heat stupor. I feel drowsy while Irish hisses that the air con needs regassing. Red faced and soaking in sweat, Irish looks like she might also need some kind of resuscitating.
We finally get into kampot, everyone leaves except us. There is time for Irish to find a nice toilet, a reviving icy beer, and to chat to the English bar owner next door. The mini-bus employee explains that they are going to drop us at the border in Cambodia. A new van will pick us up on the Vietnamese side, at the Blue Cafe and take us to the ferry port. Great! we think, this is all going very smoothly.
The Cambodian border is pretty laid back. There is a kind of elevated desk like a pulpit in the middle of the room, and a few normal desks around. It is never clear which desk you should go to. The border officials are milling around, chatting to each other, sometimes even changing desks. Soon enough our passports are checked, the in-cards ripped out of them, and we are sent out into no-mans land.
No-mans land should be called stinky land, it reeks of rotten fish sauce, bearing in mind that fish sauce already smells gross at the best of times. No-mans land is also a long way. We have to walk our tits off in bad-ass heat with our 10kg rucksacks says Irish. After only a couple of meters, we are drenched in sweat.
We finally get to the Vietnamese office. The scene is very different here. All the stern looking officials in their starched uniforms are behind glass walls. They sit in their air-conditioned glass bowls, while travellers swelter in the airless room. We hand in our passports through the porthole, enjoying the fleeting cool air wafting out of their bubble. Frenchie is allowed straight through…..however it is a categorical NO for Irish! Why not? we ask. Irish needs a visa, Frenchie does not. I had purchased online a very expensive multiple-entry visa prior to leaving. But it turns out they sent me single entry visas only, and UK, French and  other EU passports don’t need a visa for a 45 day stay. But Irish are welcome everywhere! claims Irish. The young gestapo like officer point to me and says “you can go but not her!”. Irish tries to argue her case, sweat dripping from her face. She soon realises there’s no point in discussing nazi authority, especially that young gestapo is looking more and more annoyed with us. We are ordered to get back to Cambodia and apply for a new visa online. Leaving the office, we look longingly at the Blue cafe where our poor bus driver is waiting for us. We look at each other. For a fleeting moment we consider making a run for it, like Thelma and Louise says Irish. It’s the long walk back in stinky, boiling no-mans land instead. Beaten and bathed in sweat, we enter the Cambodian office again. They look at us somewhat benevolently, but annoyed at the bureaucratic troubles caused by the Vietnamese side. After much discussions between the various desk officers, our in-cards are eventually stapled back into our passports and we are allowed into Cambodia. The visa system in Cambodia is much simpler and more democratic. Everybody pays 30$ for a month visa and that’s it.
The next hour is spent sitting outside a little cafe amongst loud and jolly tuk tuk drivers. Constant sweat dripping along our eyebrows and nose, we tap frantically on our phones. Irish looks for accommodation while I contact the visa company.

Before leaving our paradise island for good, we decide to have a look at the other side, the sunset side. On Saturday morning David Taxi picks us up and whirls us to Soksan Natura Beach, our home for the next two nights.

On the way we can’t help but notice the huge billiard boards with Chinese writing, the jungle cleared in big patches, even a gigantic, monstrous, ominous golden dragon. Probably not a good sign.

Natura beach is a small simple resort located in the middle of Long Beach, a pretty wild stretch of white sand, 7 miles long. Dominique, the manager, a sweet man, escorts us to our little bungalow, with sea view. And what a view!

Irish and Frenchie feel happy.

The bar restaurant area is very chilled, no fuss, just the mesmerising  turquoise and ultramarine of sea.

On our first swim Irish spots an army of Portuguese man-of-Wars, a highly lethal jellyfish. I swim/splash back to safety. After closer inspection, it appears to be to be floating seaweed.

This morning I swim beyond the turquoise to the dark blue part of the sea.  I swim with goggles and spot a giant sea snake and freeze. Luckily the snake does not move either. After a while it looks more like a big branch at the bottom of the sea. So I carefully resume swimming. When I get to the dark blue part there’s no change of terrain, still white sand everywhere. The change of colours occurs because it gets deeper.

We take a walk along the water edge to Soksan village. The beach in between the odd  small resort is heavily littered, mainly with plastic. “Such a remote, deserted beach, no one around except a million plastic bottles!”Says Irish. We have been wondering about water pollution when swimming around here. It is not crystal clear and not always fresh smelling.

On the way to Soksan we stop at a little beach bar.

And in the evening we get the sunset, the ultimate reason for this little trip to the other side.

We arrived in Koh Rong a week ago. We were going to stay on the island five days but have extended our stay to 8 days. We are even considering lazing around here until the end of our holiday. That’s the problem with paradise, you don’t want to leave, ever!

So why do we think we found paradise?

Location! Location! I am writing this blog on our little balcony in the jungle overlooking the beach. By chance, we got the highest bungalow of the White Beach Bungalows resort. It is always breezy up here, with the biggest, most majestic tree in the area right in front of us.

Big tree makes it even easier for the monkeys to raid our bungalow. As I was busy typing on my laptop, I felt like someone was observing me. I looked up from the screen and stared straight into two dark beady eyes belonging to a young monkey sitting on the balustrade. Despite screams and shouts from my part, young monkey did not flinch. So now I have found the ultimate weapon. My umbrella! opening it scares the shits out of them. The staff uses  sling shots with metal balls to keep them away.

White beach is also the best hideaway at the end of the bay, past the little shanty town, the restaurants and bars, far enough to be out of reach of loud music and beach parties, but also an easy walk to the hustle and bustle.

Unspoilt natural beauty.

There are no high rises on Koh Touch, no luxury resorts. In fact when you arrive on the ferry, all you can see is the small shanty town and the stretches of white sand. All buildings are low and hidden under the jungle canopy. The forest so green and opulent is indigenous. The water is crystal clear and warm, little waves, no current, tropical fish, ideal for swimming at any time of day or night. Irish and I can’t quite believe we have landed in this gorgeous heaven. The first five days, we do nothing, we hardly move away from our beloved beach

Chilled vibe

Ther’s only one roas here,a kind of narrow path made out of concrete, and no cars to be seen. The local people use moped to ride anywhere, including on the beach and through the jungles. They start early and one can see very young kids (girls and boys) riding motorbikes, weaving expertly through the busy main drag. Toddlers play in the middle of the road, dogs sleep on the road, and all along they are street vendors selling all sorts of street food, including fresh fruit all cut up and ready to eat. Mangos, pinaple and passion fruits are divine.

Most of the foreigners coming here are backpackers, a cosmopolitan young crowd, and also long term travellers. A family of four from Danemark staying at White Beach have been travelling for over 8 months. A lot of the local foreigners look like hippies from the sixties. The manager is from Turkey. Some evenings he becomes DJ at the reggae bar next door and plays some very good tunes. The reggae bar sells all sorts of recreational substances. And there is also Russian Cookie Man, walking up and down the beach with his guetto blaster, selling his homemade cookies.

Our friendly little white beach bar is managed by two young gay cambodians.

All in all a great chilled vibe. We’re both feeling so relaxed, it takes us 5 days to get back to some  sort of exploring. We hire two scooters to ride on the one and only road (sometimes just a sandy track) and see the rest of the island.

After zooming around the island for 8 hours, sitting in our little nest up here, we can now declare that White Beach is still the most blissful place on the island. We’ll be sad to leave it tomorrow morning. In fact, if our favourite bungalow hadn’t been booked already, we probably would have stayed longer.

Sihanouk is where the ferries take you to the islands. It should be renamed little Hong Kong/Las Vegas. It has been totally taken over by the Chinese. Once a quaint little sea side town with beautiful beaches, it is now just mammoth buildings, expensive resorts, shopping malls and casinos. Lots of these skyscrapers are hardly occupied as they are merely investments properties for Hong Kong people. We are staying in one such monstrosity, on the 33rd top floor.

Anyway we are here to prepare for the islands and not to sight see. There is a new currency to get to grip with and we need reliable ATMs to draw local money. The islands are cash only.

After our 12 hour trip, and some of it on a very corrugated dirt track, we treat ourselves to a few beers and a fiery papaya salad at the five star hotel down the road.

The day after we use their very large and stylish pool with a bar in the middle. We manage to swim and lounge around for about three hours despite the pool police giving us the black eye all the time. Apart from the odd Russian the hotel is almost deserted.

Irish finds a great restaurant that night, along a beach, serving succulent Chinese dishes.

The restaurant is along a pleasant beach with a beautiful sunset.