Day 88: Koh Rong Samloen
For the very last excursion in my three month trip, it was time to go underwater again. Time to dive. Since the dive sites were off an island I had in mind to visit anyway and Kristen was in town and wanted diving and seclusion too, the plan made itself. As it has done so often.
Dive Shop Cambodia (TripAdvisor) operates the diving tour we chose. It was the recommendation of an employee of theirs’ I met at a yoga class1 and it has great online reviews. They run the boats to and from Koh Rong Samloen once per day. You board the boat in the morning, it heads to the island, they drop off supplies and anyone just wanting a lift and pick up that days’ island-resident divers and snorkelers. It then goes to the dive sites and returns to the island to drop off anyone who wants to stay overnight.
If you do decide to stay, the dive boat takes you back to Sihanoukville at 15:30 on whatever day you want.
Two dives and the open ticket on the boats runs $80.
Miguelito
One of the transit-only passengers on the boat was
Miguelito. Imagine a hippy Spanish Leonard Nimoy with a goatee (an actual goatee, not the Van Dyke with which it’s often confused) and a sinewy body and a mass of white dreadlocks crowning him in a hazy halo. Such a person might travel with a ukelele and wear a brass Om symbol necklace, and so he does.
We got to talking and it turns out his hippy looks don’t lie: he lived in the bay area in the 60s. Hung out a bit with Alan Watts and Sausalito houseboat squatters involved in past-life regression therapy. Now he works on a permaculture farm in Mallorca (they take volunteers, he volunteered) when not roaming around Asia.
We hit it off and he explained his version of the law of attraction. He says when he really needs something he just tells his pichos — the little energy friends that cluster about every being and they make it happen. Like that time he needed just one AA battery and eventually found it. He gave me a fabric bracelet “from Bolivia”.
Unfortunately he became ill just as the conversation was getting going again over dinner. I hope he recovered well and enjoyed his four days on the island.
The Dive
In Bali I was surprised to feel just how relaxed diving can make you. It seems like it should be stressful: you’re under tens of meters of water. Your life depend on the tank of gas on your back and the tubes and mechanisms that let you breathe it.
Instead it’s peaceful and meditative. I was a bit apprehensive at my first dive ‘after graduation’ from open water certification, but it felt natural to get back in the water. My ego got a little boost by noting just how much more horizontal I stayed than our experienced Finnish co-drivers.
Amazingly, these boat dives were even more peaceful than those in Bali. Easier too, without a big underwater wreck to worm our way through. The marine life was almost as beautiful as we meandered though the shallow, boulder-strewn waters off the island. Stunning black spiky urchins and bat fish and bowl-like plants with translucent tentacles served as havens for bright-colored fish.
More than the marine life though, the thing that sticks with me is just how relaxing the whole thing is. Guess it must be all that concentration on the breath all the yogis are on about.
The Island
If you want isolation in paradise with some minimal comforts (like a restaurant), Koh Rong Samloen is a great place to be.
We stayed at Robinson Bungalows. It was incredibly well run, with an expat staff of presumably backpackers and a Khmer kitchen and support staff. All did a superb job of taking all the edges of what is almost camping. The food was good, the lodge was awesome and more than a few hours just evaporated sitting on the comfy wide benches for Asian-style sitting, reading or simply zoning out.
The place attracted small, adventurous families and divers. A group of German diving stoners (three of which were bald, including one woman) also shared some meals with us. I say stoners purely as reportage: they smoked up after both the dinner and breakfast we ate with them, their gear sorted in a very traditional cigar box. I assume they were serious divers too; one of the ladies had a huge undersea scene tattooed over the whole arm.
The lack of any electricity except that which could be filled into the batteries from the solar cells over the day meant the place was wonderfully, naturally quiet. The sunset was incredible — we were on Sunset Beach and watched it drown in the Gulf of Thailand from a bungalow. The stars at night shockingly bright and beautiful. Night was soundness but for the surf and the birds were louder than any man-made sound during the day.
Even while there I was imagining returning to spend weeks in that heaven.
This time I sadly didn’t have even a single week. Only had 24 hours. Apart from reading, eating and relaxing, we took a hike across the island. 45 minutes brought us to The Beach on the ‘developed’ side of the Island. There are a lot more hikes on the island to explore in the future…
Our day up, we reluctantly packed to leave. Our boat out was set to leave at 1530. Unlike the trip over on the bulky Dive Shop One over smooth seas, the ride back on Dive Shop Two was very bumpy over windy surf. I can imagine this would be a test of seasickness tolerance in an actual storm.
After a seemingly interminable sailing over the choppy waters we arrived just after sunset, eager to get back to Otres.
Driving back from town we passed four weddings and/or wedding receptions. Why so many weddings on a random Sunday? Gotta get them in before rice planting season!
Koh Rong Samloen was the ideal experience to cap these travels: it whet my appetite for more diving, more beaches and more islands in the future while still being a fully satisfying experience on its own.
The Beach at Koh Rong Samloen
‘The Beach’ – the main beach at Koh Rong Samloen.
The Main Beach at Koh Rong Samloen
‘The Beach’ – the main beach at Koh Rong Samloen.
Sunset Beach at Koh Rong Samloen
Sunset beat – the relaxed side – of Koh Rong Samloen.
Sunset Beach at Koh Rong Samloen
Sunset beat – the relaxed side – of Koh Rong Samloen.
Robinson Bungalow
Robinson Bungalow 1 at Koh Rong Samloen.
Island Temple and Fishing Boat at Sunset
While coming back from Koh Rong Samloen, I caught this picture of a fishing boat and island temple in the sunset.
Blood-Red Sunset
Red sunset coming back from Koh Rong Samloen.