Rustic Island Paradise: Five Days in Koh Rong
“This is the sort of place James Bond goes to rest and recuperate before the finale,” Jordan noted as we ate breakfast by the water, watching Cambodian kids, chickens, and dogs meander up and down the beach. It’s a good way to describe Koh Rong, an idyllic little island off the southern coast of Cambodia. Koh Rong is remote and rustic. (Getting here requires a four-hour bus ride from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, also known as Snookyville. True to its name, it’s dirty, trashy and by the shore. The only reason to go there, in our opinion, is to catch the ferry on to Koh Rong.).
There are no roads on the island. For example, reaching the even more remote Long Beach requires either a one-hour trek through the jungle or chartering a boat. Generators, turned on from dusk till most people go to bed, and candles provide power. Any supplies have to come from the mainland.
Koh Rong is a large island geographically, roughly the size of Hong Kong, but only one tiny strip of beach is inhabited. It’s got a little fishing village, complete with a one-room schoolhouse built on stilts over the water, and about a dozen guesthouses. Sure, we slept in a thatched hut and had to skirt water buffalo on our way to the bathroom, but it felt so far removed from the rest of the world, that was part of the charm.
Given the size, beauty and undiscovered feel of Koh Rong, it’s not surprising that developers have already bought the entire island and have big plans for it. A fancy hotel, a casino, an airstrip. Those plans are on hold for now, but it’s likely just a matter of time before the developers kick off the current beach bungalows and shack BBQ joints. If you’ve got plans to visit Cambodia and have some time to spare, go now.
