Huzzah! We were leaving Sihanoukville. So desperate we were to leave, we placed ourselves at the front of the queue at Serendipity Pier. But getting on the boat first meant we had to sit there for ages whilst they took on more people. I didn’t like the motion.
This was the closest I came to having seasickness. I was glad when we got moving, as was everyone to be finally leaving Shitsville.
About an hour later we arrived at Koh Rong Sanloem, an island that features jungle, white sands and not much else – very far removed from our previous stops in Cambodia’s cities. We were here to relax and sunbathe, cos there ain’t much else to do.
Our beach of choice was Sandy Beach (inventive name) on the eastern side of the island, cos it had our favourite party hostel on it.
The Bodega was just a 1-second walk from the beach. We wasted little time getting into our trunks.
This was definitely the warmest seawater I’d ever been in. It was honestly like stepping into a bath.
Even with the sun dipping below the horizon, it’s still warm enough to just relax in wet trunks.
And if you’re lucky, you might be able to nab a hammock.
You get a wet arse from it though.
After our dip we started sinking a few of these.
We’d arrived during happy hour (excellent timing) and Klangs are the cheapest beers on the menu. At $1.50 ($1 during happy hour) and 6%, they’re the go-to drink for all Bodegans here. It’s cheaper than bottled water.
Being an island resort, prices are pretty high, and there are no ATMs so make sure you bring enough cash with you from the mainland! Nobody takes card out here, not even for your room.
One issue with this Bodega is the Wi-Fi. You can only find it in the bar/pool area, which means you have to download your podcasts and your Netflix shows here and take them with you to your dorm. I’m nitpicking, obvs. Other than that, the dorms are great.
They’re in pretty little bungalows set aside from the beach. You can get curtained bunks (a rarity in Cambodia) and the air-con is a godsend. The showers are decent too. But we didn’t come to Koh Rong Sanloem to watch Netflix in our dorm all day!
When staying at a party hostel you have to be pretty bloody antisocial to not make friends. Trouble is, Andy and I can be pretty bloody antisocial. Only on our second full day did we invite others into our inner circle.
Emma and Jake from Bristol. Jake likes F1 so obviously I liked him straight away. We also met an Irish nurse called Jennifer. As this was mid-March, 2020, there was one subject that dominated chat…
The coronavirus was really starting to ruin holiday plans. Now the virus had reached Europe (and they were struggling to deal with it), Asian countries were starting to bring in new rules. On the day we arrived on Koh Rong Sanloem, the WHO categorised COVID-19 as a pandemic. My plans had already been affected when Vietnam closed its borders, and a rumour circled the Bodega that Thailand were thinking of doing the same. It was soon debunked but the idea injected worry into us all. Flights were starting to get cancelled and we had entered a phase of the holiday where we lived day by day; continually checking government websites and BBC news for information.
I decided on a new Hashtag for our trip. Amalgamating the names of myself and Cox, our trip became The Covid Tour.
Our stresses were the antipode of how this beautiful beach should have made us feel. We distracted ourselves by playing in the pool, drinking Klang, and even having a game of beach volleyball against other Bodegans and some locals (who absolutely wiped the sand with us). And of course, we all topped up on our tans under clear blue skies and in daytime temps that never drop below 30℃.
For the night ahead, I was pretty excited. Signs had gone up advertising a pub quiz. That’s me all over.
Jake, Emma, Jen and Andy joined me. The first round was about the coronavirus. Two reps were compering and one of them was a Canadian girl with a squawky voice. Nasty on the ears. She started to lose patience when people continually asked her to speak up and repeat questions. The other rep was a drunk guy from Wales – the kind of rep you know would be sleazy if you were alone with him and had a vagina.
Round 2: Every team had to offer two volunteers. We were a team of five in their mid-20s and less enthusiastic than most. Eventually, Jake and Andy got up and, with all other team tributes, were asked to get themselves into the 69 position for extra points.
And after this, nothing. We were sat there thinking “are we doing anymore questions?” The answer was no, just drinking games. 10 shite questions followed by badly organised antics. These guys couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery… or rather, a piss-up in a bloody party hostel.
THE WORST quiz I’ve ever been to. The Welsh guy came around again asking for volunteers (probably hoping the girls would get up) and we flatly told him we were leaving, as this was supposed to be a quiz.
We went and sat by the pool. Sandy Bay faces the east, which means if you fancy an early morning you can catch a pretty decent sunrise. I never got around to doing that cos I always stayed up late (blame the Klangs). But also to the east is Sihanoukville, and the dust that chokes it’s inhabitants creates an invisible filter in the sky that turns the moon orange on a nightly basis.
After chilling by the pool for a bit we all went to bed. The next morning, Andy and I checked out and headed to the pier.
Our next destination would be Kampot, followed by Phnom Penh and then back to Bangkok (and probably in a more hurried manner than originally planned). Anyhow, this would be our taste of beach/island paradise on the trip.
The sound of the waves never gets boring.
And so the last dregs of a holiday feeling were drained. For the next two weeks, it would feel like we were latecomers at a party where most people had gone home. A sense of “we shouldn’t be here” was building…
#VidOnTour 