Hello all, Here is Cambodia part two fresh off the presses and free of depressing topics like genocide. We're in India now and loving life but had plenty of fun in Sri Lanka which we'll tell you all about real soon. Hope things are starting to warm up where you are, (it was in the 80's here yesterday..and its winter) and we can't wait to see you all stateside in just a little bit.
Love Tash and Sean
Koh Rong is a tiny
island off of the southern coast of Cambodia. It features a tiny fishing
village that has grown into a travel destination as people look to escape the
beaches on the mainland that have become overrun with tourists. It’s got the
ramshackle feel of a boom town because the entire area of beach is “owned” by
one guy who can swoop in at any time and reclaim the land. This means that
nobody invests too much in anything because they’re squatters and it could all
be gone tomorrow. Why throw away a bunch of money on new toilets and showers
and such, when you don’t really own the place anyway and the hose/hole in the
ground/ pipe to the ocean is workin just fine? This reality probably adds to the party
tonight and worry about tomorrow tomorrow attitude that pervades the island.
Our hostel was called the White rose and it was one of the very last places
available on the beach because of the new years rush and we were happy to have it.
That being said the hostel was “in the village” which meant that you were
serenaded by all of the roosters and barking dogs you could handle in addition
to super hot European techno beats. Thankfully, DUNF took it all in stride like
a true Deiter and didn’t even mind that the hostel kitchen where we ate maybe
half our meals was parked right in the middle of the main bathroom area (yeah I
know, gross). A big plus was that the place had like 6 brand new puppies that
lived right out front, a big minus was that these puppies were covered with some
horrible parasitic bug disease and are probably not with us as I type this post
a few weeks later. I don’t mean to be Debbie downer Deiter right off the
genocide post but at one point a well-meaning but misguided local lady gathered
them up and sprayed them with Raid (bummer).
Either way we dropped our bags being happy to have a roof over our heads
and got down to the business at hand. When you’re in Rome you act like a Roman
and when you’re in Koh Rong you party like It’s senior year of high school and
you’re parents made the mistake of going “down the shore” and leaving you home alone
for the weekend. Over the next few days we busied ourselves strolling up and
down the tiny stretch of beach, soakin up sand and sun and taking advantage of
various happy hours and 2 for one specials. Besides the local libations we took
time to hike to one of the best beaches we’ve seen on this trip (or ever for
that matter) it was a big 4K long crescent shaped thing with golden sand and a freshwater
river crossing over it and dumping into the sea. On the way there Kerry got a
taste of what it’s like to be me when my lovely bride tried to jump a small
stream of sewage water (there were a fair amount of these on the main drag, because
of the rapid influx of tourists the islands infrastructure is totally
overwhelmed and sewage is a problem). Anyway, about halfway over she panicked
and tossed our towel into the air where it landed in the stream (Don’t worry, it’s
microfiber and hyper absorbent) As DUNF and I went to retrieve it Tish gave us
an “in other news” update that the key to our room had also been tossed and was
also somewhere in the sewage. So like a goalie in the grossest sport ever I
hopped in downstream and waited for it to float down (love is patient, love is
kind…..)On new years day we did a jungle hike across the island to a beach on
the backside that was essentially deserted. Several signs on the hike warned us
to WATCH OUT FOR SNAKES! and a laminated menu on at a café on the backside
informed us that the island features a who’s who of the world’s deadliest
serpants. Naturally being Deiter’s we survived and after some swimming and
laying around we took a sunset boat ride back to the main beach (we weren’t going
back in that jungle, there’s SNAKES in there). It was like $3 a piece and some
of the best money I’ve ever spent, the boat was slow and the scenery was
amazing and it was a perfect way to watch the last sunset of the year. New
years eve featured a nice Italian dinner (I had homemade gnocchi) before
letting off a floating paper lantern to bring us good luck in 2014. Next was
some time at a beach bar watching some fire dancers (it’s big on Koh Rong and
is the number one sport of young people trying REALLY hard to look cool, while
simultaneously pretending they don’t care what anybody thinks) Still it made
for some great pictures and led in to a running 2hour long D-day style
fireworks display where safety is for nerds and fireworks of all shapes and
sizes lit up the entire length of the beach. The actual countdown was strange
because the place we were at confusingly played a techno song with a “10…9….8”
countdown in it like 10 minutes before new year and then at various points 3
different bar tenders hopped up and did their own countdown. So eventually we
decided it had to be like 12:20 and hugged it out before heading to a place
with some overhead protection from errant projectiles. After a few more stops
and some deleted scenes we headed home happy with the knowledge that we
survived our craziest new year’s ever. The next day we awoke to an island that
looked like post-apocalyptic wasteland. Our hostel had the bright idea to give
their entire staff the day off which meant that instead of laying around in
hammocks and feeling sorry for ourselves, we had to venture out for food. The
first place we went was offering things like the “rock star breakfast” which is
a shot of whiskey, an aspirin, and a pack of smokes” so we moved onto a place
with real human food. Perhaps we should have stuck it out because the place we
ended up served Kerry and I burgers that we have isolated as the cause of what
we in the nursing world call “acute Butt-itis” and gave tash a dish that led to
a hilariously awkward fight with the staff. It went something like this. Tash
asked about the veggie burger and the waitress who kept ash-ing her cigarette
on my shoulder and was clearly so hung over she wanted to die said “its
homemade and it’s good” Tash went for it and was pumped up until a bun with
French fries, melted cheese and a tomato arrived on a plate. If tash was the
Hulk she would have turned green at this point and started smashing things, but
she’s always calm and polite and peaceful….(okay she’s not watchin anymore,
back to the facts) so she heads into the kitchen to “discuss” things with the
staff. The hungover waitress was nice and things we’re going fine but then the
owner/chef came over to debate what constitutes a “veggie burger” and threw gas
on the fire by telling tash “you’re in Cambodia luv, ya get what ya get” This
resulted in some choice language not fit for a blog and a very angry tish back
at our table. Kerry and I still had our delicious e-coli burgers and I was told
to “JUST EAT IT” as Tish’s angry eyes bored into my soul. It was an awkward
meal. After moving on and getting tash something to eat, we decided it was time
to head out from Koh Rong. The next day we took a ferry back to the mainland
and the ocean was mercifully calm, which was a blessing as Kerry was already
feeling the bite of the burger. From there we hired a taxi to a beach town
called Kampot and on the way I started my journey to deaths doorstep. By the
time we arrived at our hostel I felt so drained it was as if some plug had been
pulled in me. It was a horrible 24 hours that only saw me leave the room to get
sick. Thankfully, I’m a man nurse and turning my powers on myself led to a
relatively speedy recovery (the azithromycin, pepto and immodium probably
helped too). This cleared the way to a fantastic final stretch at Arcadia
backpackers hostel which is a bar and a set of bungalow’s perfectly perched on
a river. The owners are a bunch of young backpackers who decided to buy a
hostel together during an all night rave in the salt flats of Bolivia (normal
stuff). The bar has an opening in the back where you can run and jump into the
river (we did this like 5,000 times) and they have canoe’s and tubes that you
can use as well. It’s the kind of place that you don’t have to (or don’t want
to) leave and we had a great few days swimming, meeting other travelers,
watching a bad ass cat hunt and eat lizard’s, and otherwise having a great
time. One of the owners named Joel was a 10 year old traped in a 30 year old
body and would do things like double back flips off a giant and completely
unsafe rope swing before sprinting off into the bushes because ”somebodoy saw a
huge lizard.” He was great fun and later conspired to help me get tash a
birthday cake and candles which is more challenging than you might think in
Cambodia. We had a great birthday party for tash which included numerous night
time river jumps, some dancing on tables, and flip cup with some new finnish
friends. Sadly the day we left they were getting ready for a “pirate party”
where they cruised the river and must have been epic based on the facebook
pictures. People ended up with tatoo’s (maybe its better we had to go). The trip back to Phnom Phen was made with
fingers crossed because the garment protests had grown from a “is that a Christmas
parade?” kind of thing to a “I hope they don’t topple the government and burn
down the airport” kind of thing. We figured it would probably be fine, but you
never know and we wanted to make sure we could get our precious cargo (that’s you
DUNF) back to the airport and home safely. Thankfully when we arrived in the evening
the streets were quiet and the toughest thing we had to contend with was the
super sad “Dunfey is leaving us” tuk tuk ride to the airport. At the airport we
put our best stiff upper lip and bid farewell to our awesome friend Kerry
Dunfey. We can’t thank her enough for being so cool and for coming all the way
to the other side of the world to visit us (and eat spiders). We also feel
really bad that she flew like a million hours to Chicago where she missed her
connection because the “polar vortex” froze the cargo bay door closed and they couldn’t
get the bags out (true story). For us Deiters it was one more night in Phnom
Phen reminiscing about how awesome Cambodia was and getting ready for our next
adventure. This night also marked the end of the “first quarter” of our trip.
The Second quarter comprises Sri Lanka and India and promises to bring a whole
new set of sights and sounds and smells…(gross, but probably accurate) It also
brings us one step closer to seeing all of you fine people. Thanks again for
following along and sharing in our adventures, and stay tuned for a big Sri
Lankan update coming your way shortly.
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