Day 111 – Kampot to Koh Rong Samloem
Today we left Kemra I Guesthouse in the morning looking for a light breakfast, but we couldn’t find anything that looked decent and served food. We had to settle for coffee before running back to the guest house to be back in time for our bus pick up.
A van picked us up and after picking up several more tourists dropped us off at the waiting bus. When we got on, the bus was already full so we had to sit on the fold-able seats in the aisle. The bus left on the relatively short journey to Sihanoukville. We were lucky as the two local girls who were sitting next to me got off 30 minutes into the journey, so we were able to leave the fold-able seats and sit in comfort.
When we reached Sihanoukville, all we could see were large roads, casinos and hotels. There was also so many more buildings being built, with Chinese investments, given the number of Chinese flags on the building sites.
We were dropped off at a tour agency, where everyone got off the bus and we had to get on another bus, which took us to the close by pier. At the pier we boarded a large speed boat, that could probably seat 50 people.
The boat ride was really cool, and took around one hour. The clear blue waters were picturesque. The speed boat driver was taking the waves pretty fast and the boat was jumping up quite a few times. People who decided to stand in the back to get a breeze quickly came back inside totally drenched from head to toe.
Restaurant on Pier Side
We then arrived at the pier on Koh Rong Samloem, which involved walking off a wooden pier down some stairs into ankle deep water, which was annoying as we had to take off our hiking boots. Before hiking to the Sunset Beach on the other side of the island, we decided to have some fruit juice and pizza from a restaurant on the pier side.
We then walked through the jungle for 45 minutes. The other side was very quiet with only a handful of tourists. There were some steep uphill and downhill sections, which weren’t that fun with our backpacks and day packs strapped to us, but we were thankful for the insect repellent as we could see a swarm of mozzies following us.
We walked along the beach towards Sleeping Trees and were shown our large tipi on the sand. Unfortunately the sun was directly on it, so it felt like climbing into an oven. The staff told us not to worry as no one stayed inside the tipi during the day.
Plenty of these hanging around
This was true, as we went to the restaurant and chilled there for the rest of the day until we went to swim in the calm and crystal clear water. The water was nice and warm, and there was hardly anyone in the water. Truly a highlight of Cambodia, which really felt like anywhere but Cambodia.