Summer Travels Part III - Rainy Island

It has been a busy fall and winter for us, but I want our adventures to be chronicled even if I am back in summer. When I last left off, we were headed to the islands off the coast of Cambodia. Jeff and I had done some research and it looked like it would be a good place to spend some time. It was off-season, but we visit many places off-season and usually don't have a problem. This was different. 

We hired a taxi to take us to Sihanoukville on the coast of Cambodia. From there you are able to catch a ferry boat to one of the islands. If you look this up online it looks amazing!!! Crystal clear blue water, beautiful beaches, and everything you want for a beach vacation. We arrived to the smaller island called Koh Rong Sanloem. When we arrived the pier was a mess and not finished and I started to wonder what we got ourselves into. The first day we walked around the island and were able to go in the water for a bit. It was a fairly clear day and we didn't have any rain until that evening. 

So, we were able to collect a lot of shells, but the next day it was as blustery as it gets. We woke up in our thatched roof cabana (sounds amazing, right??) only to find the torrential winds and rain were coming down. We were cooped up in our cabin for the morning. When the rains finally stopped we headed out to find food. We found out our neighbor in the cabana next to us had been stung by a scorpion (eek!) the night before. I did not want that to happen to us. We were able to find food and ate for a bit before the torrential rains happened again. We stayed cooped up in an oceanfront store this time. It was literally blowing so hard that tree branches were falling down and people couldn't walk straight. We headed back to the cabana after a break in the rain only to have more rain. Apparently, the off-season is a legit thing there. Do not go in the off-season! We went back to the cabana and it didn't have any water (??? hello torrential downpours) to rinse the sand off or to flush the toilet until 3 pm. So we hung out and waited. That night I did not sleep as well as I heard a mouse coming into the cabana. If anyone knows me they know that I really, really don't like mice (see post on shrews). So I was pointing my flashlight at him wondering why in the world he is in the cabana. Good times. So we finally decided to leave as we had very few dry times and I started having stomach problems again. The ferrys wouldn't come in the huge storms so we just waited and waited to see if the storm would calm down so we could go. We finally carried our luggage over the broken pier and took a tug boat to a different island to catch the ferry (and let me remind you I am still having stomach issues). We were able to make it to the ferry and it was not a fun ride to get back. When we finally got back to the mainland and we took a taxi all the way to Siem Reap so we could see the UNESCO heritage site at Angkor Wat. I have never been more thankful to get off of an island. 

We made memories and it is always easier to laugh about it when you are through it, but I don't want to have to do that again!