November 3, 2012
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Sihanoukville/Koh Rong
We arrived in Sihanoukville in the early afternoon and got settled at a guesthouse about five minutes from the beach. We decided to only spend one night here since most of what the city had to offer was blind masseuses and deaf prostitutes. I am not making either of those up. We had a quick lunch (quick by southeast Asia standards i.e. about an hour to try to get the waiters attention for refills and the bill) and then headed down to the beach. Upon our entrance to the beach, we were instantly enclosed in a circle of hustlers and peddlers. We were defenseless against the sheer number of items and services being thrown at us, we had no choice but to surrender…and get some pedicures. About halfway through, we thought to ask how much this was going to cost us. They wanted $10 for the feet and another $10 for the hands. Absolutely ridiculous. So Kiel had his lady stop with one side done and I cut a deal to get them both done for cheaper. I can’t even begin to tell you how many puzzled looks we got from foreigners walking by. With our manly pampering done, we strolled down the beach to find some chairs to relax on. That’s basically how we spent the whole day. Laying down and occasionally slipping into the ocean to cool off. That evening we weren’t feeling too adventurous, so we just slept and got ready for Koh Rong. Koh Rong was…disappointing. It had (I’ll explain why it’s “had” and not “has”) so much potential to be a must-visit spot in Cambodia. The island could’ve really been a haven for beach goers trying to get away from the really touristy beaches. One of the big problems was that it was dirty, plain and simple. It looks like they’re trying to throw as many places up as possible without taking the time to make it look nice. The other HUGE problem was that on theside of the island with the guesthouses, there wasn’t much of a beach. Half of the beach was covered in stagnant, rancid looking water that could be easily fixed by back-filling or digging a channel to let the water run out into the ocean. Let me get off of my high horse for a minute, our accommodations weren’t too bad, a bungalow right next to the beach. And let me mount back up on here, ok there we go, one of the things that really bothered me were the location of the bathrooms. Directly behind the bar/restaurant, meaning everyone in there could see who was going to use the bathrooms and how long they were in there. Not to mention you could hear people’s conversations clearly while you were in the john, so by simple logic, they could most likely hear you too. Ok enough bitching, wait, one more thing. When we went in the water the first day, directly in front of our bungalow, there was a film on top of the water which I’m assuming was oil or gasoline from one of the shoddy boats anchored up near-by. Now onto the positives of this place…there was a waterfall. Wait, I’m sorry, we couldn’t find it since none of the trails are marked out on the island. Can you tell I wasn’t a fan of this place at all? Needlessly to say, I was more than ready to get the hell off of that island after a couple days. With a sigh of relief, we were on a boat headed back to the main land.
