Island Get away : Koh Rong Samloem

How beautiful is that?!

Hi wonderful people, so I promised you a post about my get away to Koh Rong Samloem island remember? Well I am keeping my promise you guys :) Last month over the new year holidays, a group of friends and I decided to escape the city and go to a paradise like island here in Cambodia called Koh Rong Samloem. Now this is not to be confused with Koh Rong, this is a different island about 1 hour away from Koh Rong. It is smaller, quieter and with fewer backpackers, fewer hotels, just amazing. I have been to Koh Rong as well and maybe ill write a post about it just for comparison purposes.

Now Koh Rong Samloem is 4-5 hours off of Sihanoukville by the slow boat, or 1 hour by the speed boat. The speed boat is definitely more expensive,at $30 return, but definitely worth it. Koh Rong Samloem is absolutely beautiful! The water was clear, the sand was white and so clean that it squeaked with every step. It was unbelievable!

On the speed boat.

Just got off the speed boat and can't believe how beautiful the island is. Peep the plastic bag full of drinks ;) 

We stayed on two hotels the whole time we were there. First one was a thatched/hut looking bungalow at The beach resort with a shared bathroom for $20. The room was alright, very basic. There's a lovely dorm here for mostly backpackers or people on a budget and it's $8 per night. It is worth noting that the electricity stayed on both day and night(in the bungalows, not sure bout dorm). Usually on islands hotels only offer a few hours of electricity per day, so this was a lovely surprise. The second hotel was beach front bungalow with a lovely balcony on Saracenbay Resort Cambodia which was amazing. Only thing is we had electricity only at night till around 6am in the morning. And most mornings I'd wake up drenched in sweat, and unable to go back to sleep due to the heat.

The beach resort bungalow.

Me on the balcony of Saracen Bay resort.

There's not much to do on the island. We ate, drunk, played board games, lounged on the beach, swam in the clear waters, played a little bit of beach football (ha!) - my kinda holiday. Naturally we brought our own drinks and mixers to minimize cost of buying a million drinks on the bar, but be warned, they were very lax about giving us ice lol. We did trek the trail that goes right through the island into the other side where Lazy beach hotel is at and this took us about 1.5 hours. That was fun, although I definitely preferred our side of the beach and wouldn't recommend this short trek alone.

Beautiful

Board games after breakfast.

Some beach football :) lol

Photo credit goes to the very talented Zeeshan.

We were also lucky that the monthly cambodian full moon party for April was scheduled on one of the nights we were there. It was my first ever full moon party and I wasn't expecting anything crazy coz Koh Rong Samloem is a tiny little island in Cambodia..like its not like its Thailand right? WRONG! It was crazy, there was over 500 people!! I have never seen so many travellers and backpackers in one place...lol. They kept coming and coming and coming, by boat from allover Sihanoukville!! Although the music started off horrible, later on it was a bit better and we got to dancing the night away on the beach. There was a lady with a booth doing awesome party make up on people for free. She had sequins, glitter, colors everything. But my friend and I went to get our make up done too late and there was nothing left but sequins lol, at least we tried :)There was a fire show too, and a large bonfire that people just sat around and played drinking games- during the shitty music bit lol. It got a bit crazy as the night went on, drugs and everything that goes with that etc etc. My friends and I couldnt undersand why people need drugs at a party when there's vodka redbull lol clearly we are old :) One thing I'll never forget- my friend who had an injured arm- thought it was a good idea to take a bike that was sitting around on the beach and hide it int he bushes..lol. It was funny to see her do it-with some help- and to see the owner look for it. Overall we had lots of laughs and lots of fun :)

Bonfire on the beach.

Fire show.

Getting my party face on..lol

Tada lol

Let's partyyyyyy!!!

So much fun was had!!

I obviously can't say everything that happened, every conversation that made me laugh to the point of tears, there's also a story of how my friends scared off a Dutch traveller..LOL, a very very hilarious drinking game with backpackers we had just met, my Dutch friend trying to get away with spelling UL at scrabble. Yeah, UL as in letter u and letter l..what is that??lol We laughed and laughed with no care in the world and I am grateful everyday for these kinds of experiences :)