We found a paradise!

After weeks of travel, we finally arrive at a beautiful beach and the sun is out!

    After we were in Phnom Phenn for two nights we took a two hour bus to Sihanoukville on the southern coast in the gulf of Thailand.  The bus ride was actually five hours long, and we started to get gloomy because although it was supposed to be nice, it started to look stormy the closer we got to the coast.  Thailand has actually been flooding the last week, and everyone is confused because this is supposed to be the dry season.

   We arrived in Sihanoukville and it was dry, but heavy overcast.  You could see out in the gulf that a large storm was approaching.  The good thing was, at least in this bad weather it was still 85 degrees F out. 

    I made a promise to myself that I would try to keep my spirits up, at least it was hot and rainy.  So I booked us a boat out to a island off the coast of Cambodia – Koh Rhong.  The morning we boarded the boat the weather was terrible, and we were actually setting sail into a low level tropical storm, but the captain of the boat did not seem to think it was a problem.  Three hours of an extremely unpleasent boat ride later we arrived.  It was like heaven.

   The island is huge, and about 2,000 villagers live in five separate villages around the island.  There are no roads, there is only generated electricity.  SOMEHOW there is a continual break in the storm right above our bungalow.  It is seriously ridiculous, black clouds all around us and the bay that we face is totally sunny!  There is a small village at the end of our beach, ten bungalows, and then three kilometers of untouched, white sand beach.

 

    The water is clear and it is like bath water, and this is only one of 86 beaches on the island or something like that!  So now we chill, we might go snorkeling later and in a few hours we are gonna go trek inland through the island to the other side and see what it is like.  There are some reefs around the island, but  not in the bay out front of our bungalow.  It is $15.00 to rent our little cabin (more of a shack with two mattresses and two chairs on a porch, oh and a hammock.  No real sink or running water, but a private ‘bathroom’) and the restaurant has mid range Cambodian prices on food and stuff (this is where the business really makes money, not to many options here!).  I might go into the village later and pick up some fruit though.

 

Puss and Scabs.  Two puppies from the Island.  Puss (left) is probably not going to make it, he is very weak and does not eat, has no fur, and is covered in puss and infectious wounds.  We tried to make his last days a little more comfortable by giving him some rice, chicken and water.  Scabs on the right is cute, but got attacked by a bigger dog on the island and severed one of his neck muscles so he walks with his head tilted.  Me and Chelsea and some of the others on the island revived this dog – he is going to live now!  He was walking around and acting like a real dog again when we left.  Both sweet dogs, it is a shame that they do not neuter their animals and that puppies get born into terrible situations.  At only a few months old these two have had a very hard life.  Puss, if you are dead now RIP.

We also met many friendly Germ’s, Holl’s Aussies and a Fin on the island, as well as a friend from Vancouver!