Swiss Family Blue

3/30/12:

We made it back to civilization!!!!!

We spent the night of the 28th at a place called Paradise which was a bit farther down the beach. It was nice but clearly older than our first bungalow at a place called CoCo's. I think we slept alright but as usual, a hideous mosquito managed to breach our mosquito net and wreak some havoc on our tender skin. Anyway, got up had breakfast and moved to the highlight of our trip to Koh Rong. We found a place on another beach called the tree house bungalows and thought 'we HAVE to stay here.' So we booked 1 night there for the astronomical price of $30/night. However, this has to have been one of the coolest, most amazing places we've ever stayed in. They've built bungalows high up in the trees literally on the ocean. Ok, not actually on the ocean, but about 3 meters away. Our bungalow was about 30 feet high and had a bathroom half way up the ladder. The bungalow itself had a nice bed, some windows and a table. The porch had a hammock a papazan chair, a wooden bench and table. It was truly amazing. Just sitting up there listening to the waves crash on our own beach. Ain't life grand?

Anyway, we spent yesterday (29th) just lazing around our tree house and ended up going for a walk to another deserted beach nearby called 4k beach. Why? Cause the beach is 4 km of untouched white powdery beach with some stunning water to boot. Played in the water for a bit, annoyed some crabs and snails, you know the normal stuff.

Had dinner with some fabulous new friends and consumed the best pizza we've tasted in a while.

Sleeping in our tree house was über romantical except for the temperature. We opened all the windows and even the door but the ocean breeze just have us the finger. Stagnant, hot air is all we got. Not easy to sleep when you're sweating all over yourself as the bed. Not fun at all. But listening to the waves all night sure was great. Oh did I mention that a cute puppy slept on our porch all night? And we saw the coolest water buffalo walk by our tree house? Awesome!

So the treehouse was great except a couple minor issues:
They only had running water at night and didn't really have a reliable time table for said water.
The towels provided smelled like they came from a high school gym's dirty laundry.
Ants. Heaps and heaps of ants. Luckily they didn't carry us away during the night.

In case you couldn't figure it our from our posts ... Koh Rong is amazing. If you're looking for a stunningly beautiful island with huge, completely deserted beaches then put koh Rong at the top of your list. It isn't going to stay this way for long. rumor has it that development is starting to make its way to this wonderful island. Plans are in the making for an int'l airport, ring road and $1600/night resorts. But there's still time to experience koh Rong. We just can't say enough about this island!!!!!

We hopped on the 2 hour ferry this AM and made it back to civilization. Got a room at the Beach Road hotel for $20 with A/C and a hot shower and a pool!!!! Then we made arrangements to get our Vietnam visa which is a whole lot easier here than anywhere else on the planet. Seems the further you get from Vietnam, the more this mythical visa costs and the the longer it takes. Here in Sihanoukville it costs about $45 per person and takes 30 minutes. In phnom penh it was closer to $50 or $60 and would take like 3 days. If you're completely paranoid and get it in the US before leaving it costs over $100 and takes weeks. So all this of course means we're heading to Vietnam in the next couple days. Should be a great time!

Spent the rest of today doing refit stuff: laundry (2 weeks worth), snack shopping, foot massages, etc etc. we'll spend tomorrow hanging out at the hotel pool planning for Italy and maybe watch a movie later.

Pics:
1) view from inside our treehouse
2) our treehouse
3) Carolyn on our porch
4) our treehouse is the middle one.
5) close up of the treehouse