The Island

After being on our own for Phnom Penh and Kampot, we arrived in Sihanoukville meeting up with our band of fellow travellers and organised a boat across to the island of Koh Ta Kiev.
So like voyagers off to foreign lands we boarded our vessel, wading through chest-high waves to load our luggage.

Approaching the beautiful island of Koh Ta Kiev it appeared completely deserted, except for 5 small bungalows set back from the beach amongst the trees and one big hut on the beach edge. We docked in much the same manner as when we set sail from Sihanoukville, minus the waves.

We had brought food supplies from the mainland, and a big cooking pot, so in our bungalow that 5 of us shared we created a larder, giving it a very homely feel!

Balancing on the nipple!

Our stay here was sheer bliss, daytime hours were spent discovering the island's coastline, swimming, searching for shells, reading, or following trails through the jungle. Our evenings were spent cooking one-pot dinners and drinking home-made lemongrass and ginger tea spiked with good measures of cheap whisky!

A short walk along the beach and a very short trail through the jungle to find another small bay - the most amazing bar/restaurant, also providing treehouses and hammocks to stay in. From what we saw of Cambodia this is it's gem - and if you ever have the opportunity to go there you should swing by 'Ten103 Treehouse Bay' (the coordinates of it's location) and say hello to Joel and Roberto, an american/italian pair of chefs. There's not much information online as they don't like to advertise much, thus keeping the intimate tranquility intact.

Unfortunately their accommodation couldn't fit 9 of us so we stayed at Tom's bay, but spent much of our time hanging out there, lazing around with the uber-chilled cat with no name, enjoying brick-oven cooked sweet bread filled with raisins accompanied with caramel sweet milk, special cookies delicious coffee and good conversation.

Breakfast time

The atmosphere of the place coupled with nature at it's best and great company made the hours drift by like seconds. I'm sure in time the island will become more developed but currently it's a beautifully lonely island - there were times when James and I had the entire 5km beach to ourselves.



Needless to say we had the most peaceful time on Koh Ta Kiev, and came away with some very fond memories - to mention a few: Roberto's welcome, peeling and de-seeding 4 kilos of tomatoes to create Martin's special soup, searching for Shiva eyes and the 'perfect' shell, morning ritual of a dip in our private ocean, disco night jungle walk, the incessant mosquitoes that "don't deserve to live as they are just not polite!".

It was sad to leave but all good things come to an end... only to create space for more. We jumped off the beach at Otres beach, a quieter bay 4km from Sihanoukville, where we found a great guesthouse called Done Right with an inviting atmosphere and a creative way of building recycling cans and bottles instead of bricks. Check out their site here - the first pic is the dome we stayed in! Good ideas.

The guesthouse is not quite finished as they only started building 3 months ago after their previous site further up the beach was bulldozed and re-claimed by the government to turn it into a National Park. The guys who run the place are very chilled and sporting an array of pets, all as young as the bar. My favourite, Ninja (Felix) the ginger kitten, rivals the cat-with-no-name from Ten103 for uber-chilledness and comes up 2 steps ahead. He loves to be loved and being so small and cute he sure is loved.

ahhhhh.... Ninja!

The 2 sibling pups who speed around the volleyball court at lightning speed, and a fully tame chicken, being raised from a chick on her owner's shoulder. She would sit on the back of your chair and peer over your shoulder at your laptop, occasionally stretching her leg in a ballerina-style move.

From Otres beach we headed back to Thailand. We finally arrived at the border after a laborious bus ride - we got 2 flat tyres, the engine broke several times causing us to stop regularly and finally the air-con broke, pouring rivers of water onto the back seats. Luckily people on those seats could move forwards as the bus was no longer completely full by then, as many people fed up of the incessant delays had hailed passing traffic to taxi them to the border.

The border crossing into Thailand featured no corruption unlike the Cambodian one - efficient with no "extra" charges. It reminded me of arriving into France from Spain, because all of a sudden everything seemed to be much more ordered and organised. It feels good to be back in Thailand - we went out for dinner straight away to enjoy a Pad Thai (james' favourite) and Tom Yam Goong, the best soup in the world! That very much introduced me back to the spicy food we had been missing while in Laos and Cambodia.

Keen for more island life we took the ferry to Ko Chang with Lolle and Phil, who we've been travelling on and off with for the past 6 weeks. We hired motorbikes, ran out of fuel 3 times in just one hour.... drank some SamSong (rum), swung in hammocks and beach swings for hours and chilled out with the locals. Now we are in smelly Bangkok impatiently awaiting a flight to Yangon in Myanmar - our 4th country.

Even the trees show their love on Koh Ta Kiev!