It was another early start and a long bus ride from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, to get a boat to our next destination, Koh Rong. Koh Rong was one of Cambodia's islands, touted as a beautiful place, as well as a party destination, diving spot, snorkelling area, and relaxing golden sand beaches beckoning to tourists. We were initially undecided about where to; go to Koh Rong, go to another island, to stay in Sihanoukville’s centre, or to stay in another beach area east of Sihanoukville. We’d had different opinions from various travellers about what was good. We’d also had a recommendation from a friend to stay in a lodging in Koh Rong, called Monkey Island. In the end, that’s what we decided to do.

The bus took a long time, five and a half hours, to get to Sihanoukville . Like other places in Cambodia, the distance wasn’t far, but it all took a long time. We reached the outskirts of Sihanoukville and were told to get off the bus by some chap. We weren’t at the bus station so refused, especially as no one else was getting off the bus. Turned out the chap was a remorque driver and was targeting the only obvious tourists on the bus. We declined to get off the bus, despite his insistence, and continued to the bus station. Here, we were set upon by remorque drivers who all insisted on a high price to go the 6km into the centre of town. We haggled until we could just about handle the price, and asked to go to Monkey Republic in the centre.

Instead, the driver took us to a boat booking place. We told him once again to take us to Monkey Republic, and he did so, grudgingly.

When at Monkey Republic, we set about booking Monkey Island resort on Koh Rong (we’d tried to do this online, and had failed miserably) . We also booked our boat ticket to get to and from Koh Rong. The boat wasn’t for another two hours, so we settled into the bar and had some lunch. Here, we saw a man wearing a t-shirt which said 'Admiral Div', playing pool by himself. That's right, Admiral Div was playing with himself. We chuckled at this for some time, and soon enough we made our way down to the dock to get the boat.

We were told the boat journey would be 40 minutes long. It was more like an hour. We’d been told that the journey could be rough, so made sure we got seats in the centre and at the back of the boat. The crossing was fine – we only saw one person be sick – and we passed by some scenic islands on the way. On arriving at Koh Rong, we found that the dock was woefully inadequate for it’s purpose, as it was far too narrow and too crowded for comfort. We forced our way out of the crowds, and went to an island 'briefing’ offered by a helpful chap. We were given a free coke, and told things like where the limited medical facilities were, how to get around the island, how to avoid the sand fly bites, possible activities and the directions of the main accommodations.

By this time, it was getting dark, so we headed off to Monkey Island, our lodgings. We checked in, and were given a log cabin, just back from the sea front but still on the sand. We had a balcony with chairs and hammocks, space for five people to sleep, and en-suite bathroom with a cold water shower, and a bucket for flushing the toilet . It was pretty open to all kinds of insects and creepy crawlies (as we would later discover…) and the gap between the wall and the roof was so large, one night we were joined by a cat jumping in through the gap. The staff were friendly, and the place offered good food, with a vegetarian selection, at fairly reasonable prices. Plus happy hour from 6pm to 9pm.

Feeling tired from the long days of travel, we didn’t do much bar eat and go to sleep. We had gravy and mashed potatoes – both very rare on our travels – and were content that we’d chosen well.

On Monday 14th, we had a relaxing day. With a late start, and a comprehensive vegetarian fry-up for breakfast, we went for a dip in the sea, and later a long snorkel around the end of the beach. We found some shallow coral, together with plenty of fish, purple sea cucumbers, a star fish, and murky visibility. We enjoyed the beach for a while, and went and got a drink from one of the many beach front vendors . We had another great evening meal at Monkey Island, sampled some of the bar staff’s cocktail creations, and played with the kittens. Lovely.

On Tuesday 15th, we went diving. The first time in four months, since Mexico, and the visibility was rubbish. We knew it would probably be quite poor, so asked, and were told by the dive shop that it would probably be quite poor. We decided to go for it anyway, as our only chance to dive in Cambodia. The first dive was at Khmer Reef, a 40 minute boat ride around the coast of the island. We were diving with two hungover Tasmanians, and our dive master, Greg. It was a shallow dive to a maximum depth of 9.5 metres, meaning the dive was long, and we could take the underwater camera. We saw things which were similar to our snorkelling of the previous day – lots of coral, fish, shoals of fish, sea cucumbers galore, a huge common porcupine fish, a small eel, a giant clam, and a hermit crab. The dive was 66 minutes long, the longest yet for us . Though the visibility was poor at about seven metres average, it was a nice dive.

The second dive was at Buddha Reef, back along the coast towards the dock. In between, we had lunch – fried rice and fruit – and relaxed on board, whilst our nitrogen levels returned to normal. This dive was a lot more stressful, with very poor visibility – five metres maximum, three metres average – and with currents. We stuck close to Greg, not wanting to get lost, but didn’t see what he pointed out just because the visibility from his vantage point to ours was so obscured. We lost the two Tasmanians, meaning we all surfaced to find one another, before going back down for another 15 minutes. We didn’t see much of anything, just a couple of nudibranches and a huge sea slug (we think – Greg didn’t know what it was either). The dive was 60 minutes long and to a maximum depth of 12.5 metres. There were no pictures from the dive because our underwater camera cannot go that deep, and they would have been terrible anyway with the currents and visibility . So the first dive was nice, the second was not so nice. In the end, we were still glad we went and had had a good day.

We got our dive logs signed off at the dive shop and went on our merry way to find a happy hour. We had some delicious sangria and enjoyed the beach, before heading back to Monkey Island for a much needed shower. Dinner was again delicious, and we witnessed the start of the pub crawl, with about 40 people in matching t-shirts descending on Monkey Island. We opted to not join, and went to have a quiet night instead. (The pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-party poopers that we are.)

On Wednesday 16th, it was already time to check out and get a boat back to Sihanoukville. In the process of packing, Jayna discovered that ants were nesting in her boots. That’s right, her trusty walking boots, which had been with her through all 20 countries on this journey, plus Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Italy, France, Trinidad and Tobago, Iceland, Norway, Romania, Hungary, Northern Ireland, and the Philippines; they’d climbed mountains and covered hundreds of miles of the Cornish coast path, climbed Rough Tor, walked in the local woods, pounded the pavements in London, developed a hole in Bolivia and had been glued back together in Peru (they’d also been accidentally glued to the bedspread at the same time)… they were now a home to ants, with eggs .

We couldn’t salvage them because we had no way to make sure they were ant free in the limited time we had before taking the ferry off the island, and we didn't want to transport the boots in case the remaining ants began to spread into more of our stuff during the transit. Plus the ants had already started to take apart the insides of the boots. Now shoeless, Jayna had to leave them behind.

Gutted.

We checked out and made our way to the dock, to queue on the narrow slipway and avoid being bashed by the badly timed workmen with their work materials and giant trolleys. Presently, the ferry came, and we were off to our next destination – Sihanoukville!