We booked the speed ferry to Koh Rong. Took 45 minutes instead of 2 and a half hours.
The place is unbelievable. Pure white beaches that made a squeaking noise when you walked, clear seas and lots of beach bars. You can only stay on one part of the island which is the only developed part.

We stayed in Monkey island beach bungalows. They were very nice with a big bed and a mosquito net. We had to flush the toilet ourselves and was only allowed a minute shower. The water was that cold it didn't matter to us anyway. The bungalow was thatched. It had gaps all over meaning little things could get in. On one of the nights the island didn't have power. We were using our torches to get around. After food and chatting to people in darkness we decided to go back as nothing was happening because nowhere had electricity. Again, shining our torch was were just about to get into bed when we saw the biggest spider we have ever seen. Jakes not really scared of spiders but this one was different. It was huge. Anne Marie had already ran out of the bungalow crying! She was petrified. Jake tried to act brave but it was high up and he wasn't going anywhere near close enough to get at it. Shining the torch at the spider I looked at Anne Marie then it was gone. I blagged that I saw it climb up out the roof and she ran into bed then sorted the mozzie net so nothing could get in.

We've been warned that everyone who comes to Koh Rong gets ill. As its so small it's easy to catch. People say it's food poisoning but the people that live and work here say it's just the Koh Rong Bug. Although we think it's the water they watch the salad and things in. Touch wood we haven't caught it. We have eaten from the barbecues and at our hostel. So been pretty careful not to eat anywhere where people said not to! And although it was very hard we didn't eat any of the salad!

The beach where we stayed was nice but not the nicest beach we've been on since we have been here. So we walked to the next beach. About 20 minutes walk through some woodland we found it. The beach was 4km long and apart from 4 people camping on it we were the only ones. This was more like it!

On our last full day on Koh Rong Jenny & George met us on the island so we spent the afternoon at Long Beach. The beach is only the other side of the island and took 20 minutes by boat or you can walk 1hour through the jungle. We arrived at the beach and was blown away. It was actual paradise - a whole stretch of white sand a crystal blue water to ourselves. Anne-Marie & Jenny sat watching the sunset while Jake and George acted out different football moves with the sun acting as a football!! BOYS. The evening was spent at the main part with a BBQ for tea at $5 which was lovely, any choose of fish or meat.

Koh Sanleom is the sister island of Koh Rong. It's not as built up and not much happening there, if you hadn't eaten by 8pm then you'd go hungry. so it was a chilled out couple of days. The first night we paid $7 each and stayed in bunk beds which were just built on at the back of a guys dive shop! Was good other than the adorable 3 week old puppies crying and barking at 4am. The second night we opted for a 4 bed bungalow which again was nice until we found a rat running across the beams and again a spider bigger than our hands. Anne-Marie some how picked up a bug which got passed around all 4 of us so we were glad of the relaxing days. The beach is the same as long beach just beautiful and not spoilt as not many Backpackers go there as there's not a lot going on. But you can tell if we returned in a couple years time it would be ruined by all the contrition work taking place. Sad really.

Saturday we headed back to main land (Sihanoukville) so Anne-Marie can get her stitches out woohoo! We were told she would be able to swim and wash her hair once there out. NOPE! 3 more days with no water touching the head- not happy and Jake keeps joking that he can cook his meals with the amount of grease on her hair.