There are some old friends recently joined in the project and Yoga da and Haseena join myself, Roopesh, Gladston and Abhishek in the adventure. We take a cab from Phnom Penh to sihanoukeville ( 190 $ for the big van with return. Camry was approx 50$ one way). If you know me and Haseena, I think we are two people who really cant sit quietly, so the whole of three and half hours theres music and a lot of chattering, I still think some people managed to sleep though ( Abhishek was caught snoring J ).
We reach Sihanoukeville at around 1 AM and our cab driver took us to a Hotel, the hotel was ok at a decent 12$ per room, so we decided to take it. As usual we had not planned enough for the trip and the hotel guy wouldn’t give much information about Koh-rong, the little we knew bout it was that the ferry leaves at 8 and we need to catch it for sure. Everyone got cozy in their rooms, and bid gud nite, though still some people had the FIFA fever on.
Next morning I got up at 5 and woke up Gladston asking him to wake everyone else ( as I know people are gonna listen to him). Everyone was ready around 6:30, but the hotel guy still wasn’t much help about the island and the boat, so we decided to leave for the ferry terminal and find out for ourselves. As we approached the beach we knew there are a lot of tour shops and after a bit of roaming found a boat leaving to Koh-rong for 60$, which seemed ok and we decided to roll,, this was the first time I felt that the trip has started on a healthy note and we did not have to worry much about managing.
We reached the boat at 8 and were ready to roll, Haseena lost her footware tryig to get on the boat :P … it was not at all funny . we came in the boat and I was getting excited to go in the sea again J … and we waited and waited and waited, the boat had some 5 europeans more to come who arrived at 9:30, which left most of pretty frustrated, but nonetheless once they came and the boat started things started to be pleasant again. Also to note that we knew that the island will not have any electricity and there was Argentina – Germany match that day, with Yoga da not wanting to stay on the island and he kept saying he will come back for the match, though atleast myself and Gladston did not have any such plans.
It was a small boat and the thing about small boats is that they are very very slow. And the time wouldn’t pass and the buildup to the excitement was killing me, after a long two and half hours we finally were going to reach the island. Almost at the shore we saw a snake like fish floating upright on the water at a very fast speed, it looked awesome, these are the things only few have the pleasure to watch and the moment is too difficult to capture, I am glad I was present there in person.
As we were docking the boat, I noticed there are only few boats on the island and a very few houses, once we landed on the island it looked beautiful , a very long beach of white sand and not many people to bother, it was picture perfect. Myself and Gladston set out to find the scuba shop in the island for snorkeling and diving, as we went around we couldn’t find anything and things started to look bleak. All my excitement was changing into fear and finally we found theres no boat to take us snorkeling and we are just there to enjoy the deserted island. It was an utter blow as my whole purpose of the trip was to go snorkeling, and I wasn’t gonna get any. Soon ideas started to pop up in peoples mind that what to do, and we immediately wanted to head back in the evening, so that we could utilize tomorrows day with some snorkeling tour in sihnoukeville. This also got an utter blow when the boat driver said that hes not going back today at any cost. We sat down, ordered lunch to cool down and turned out that the lunch was as horrible as well, now I realized that it was like every other trip and things were starting to look pretty bad again, but is there any scope for things to change.
After a dismal lunch we decided to stop remorsing and take a dip. We had two snorkeling kits and we wanted to try anything is we can, we took a dip and soon it was the fun of the beach and trying to swim and snorkel for me J, Gladston saw at a distance that the beach is rocky and there might be corals that side, so we set out to try our luck for that, it was at least 2 km away from the point we were and all the trying to swim and trying to walk in water was really making me tired.
Haseena is a bit afraid of water and agreed to get in if Gladston accompanies her and she did but I really wish I had a camera, she would not leave Gladston hand in knee deep water, this proving the point that shes really afraid of water and we did not try to drag her in for the rest of the trip.
We continued on the quest of corals and kept walking further and further away, and Gladston did finally manage to find a lot of fishes, but the place was too rocky and since I couldn’t swim it meant a no for me, still me and yoga da tried walking as far as we could and entered the rocks, eventually meaning that we both had a lot of cuts on our legs, this trip was again getting from bad to worse as nothing was turning out right and walking barefoot on the beach with cuts in the legs was not a gud thing to do.
I finally was able to see a few fishes and we decided to call it a day to snorkeling. We had to make a long way back to the cottage and the sun was blazing its full fury, I turned 3 shades darker atleast. We sat down took a bath and tried to relax a bit, Gladston and yoga went out to find a place for dinner. To our surprise they both were missing for almost two hours in a small place and myself and Haseena decided to go find em. When we reached at one end of the village we found them coming back and Gladston was really delighted, to our surprise he told us that tehres a beautiful waterfall nearby and he took a bath there. Later he also told us that Yoga was knocking on everyones door to look for food and the kind villagers offered him a lot of things. It was getting dark and going to the waterfall didn’t seem a gud idea so we decided to go for it next early mrning.
These guys had ordered a lot of food at a restaurant and were dinner problems were also solved, as we reached the restaurant at 7:30 I was a bit dark and to our surprise there was too much of food with prawns, fried sea fish, fresh water fish soup etc, more fish meant less options for me, and I tried the prawns, everyone really enjoied the food, and I had to content with them njoing it J.
Getting up next morning was really tough but somehow everyone managed to, yoga decided not to come as he had a lot of cuts in the leg and the rest of us made our way to the waterfall, there are two ways to go up the waterfall the normal way and the way up the stones, and with Gladston I ll always take the road less travelled. The climb was a bit steep but nowhere near the hike we had in Kampot and seemed more than easy, but it was a first time for Haseena but she is tough, slowly but steadily she was making her way up. Its really fun to work as a time and help your team members as and when required J.
As we reached up the water from the fall was really really cold and Galdston had already made his way through, I was next and as soon as the water fell on me, I lost my breath, I had to retreat, then slowly I made my way through and got used to the cold water, after 5 minutes I was ready to take the plung. Oh the water falling from the height with a great force, its an incredible experience, I couldn’t have hoped for anything better that morning. The streams of water falling on my body with so much force, it was just incredible. So it was a first time for me taking a bath in the waterfall and it goes among the best of my experiences in life so far. Thrilled with the emotion we made our way back down.
We didn’t know what yoga was upto as he wud be upto something afterall, we went to the same place for breakfast and found him learning how the Banking system works in the village. We found him covered in bandages like 15 of them on both foots and it really seemed. We had a nice breakfast of yellownoodles with egg and vegetables and set out on the way back.
The way back had a bit more challenges for us as it was raining really hard at times and getting drenched was the only option, but we founfd the only safe place in the boat and hurdled together gossiping around for almost 2 hours, and there also Yoga found a safer spot, he went to sleep inside the cabin where they keep luggage and stuff and avoided all the rain J.
It was great to see that the rain had stopped when we ported, from there we headed straight to the snake house to have lunch and capture some snake pics, I was really hungry and hogged like anything. I recorded a snake removing skin which was a first time experience as well. I have always been fascinated by the wild life especially snakes (thanks to NatGeo) but seeing things in person is altogether a different experience.
And as I look back now, all my trips have their high and lows and this trip was no different, things not going right always makes you appreciate the good moments just a bit more and I am really glad that I went to a deserted island exploring a bit more of the, coming closer to nature.
