After the history lessons of Saigon and Phnom Penh, we were ready for relaxation. Koh Rong had been recommended to us by a couple of folk along the way by now, so we made a point of taking the 3-4 hour bus ride south from the capital to Sihanoukville, on the coast. From here it was straightforward enough to book a return ferry ticket to get us out to the island of Koh Rong - about 2 hours out into the Gulf of Thailand.

There was one simple aim to this 3-4 day leg of our trip: sit on the beach.

And that we did, with a pretty sweet little coconut shack serving as our base, we did enjoy the white sandy beaches and crystal clear waters of Koh Rong. The north beach was rather unfortunately polluted with plastic bottles, and general tourist rubbish as it seems everything washes up there. Real shame as it could be so beautiful. But we had made the trek up there so we did our best to clear up an area and we did have about half a mile of beach all too ourselves, so not all bad. Like something out of rom-com movie, only seconds after exchanging "I love you, this is awesome!" comments, while in the midst of an embrace, we came under attack from a killer crab. As we made our escape onto dry land, he kept hunting us down, like he could smell our fear. Seriously. Beaten by a 6 inch crab. Shameful.

The other side of the island however, Long Beach, was a different matter and we went on a BBQ and booze cruise around there one day. This is about as close to white sandy paradise as either of us have ever seen.

You have to remember there are no cars, bikes, roads etc on Koh Rong, and with most things centered on the other side of the island, there is nothing but half a dozen coconut shacks here and a bar - that's it. The beach stretched for about a mile and with only a few hundred people on the whole island at any one time, there is maybe quarter of those here, and there is plenty of space for everyone. Unfortunately our photos are limited to what we could take from the boat though! Because the water is fairly shallow, the boat anchors down a couple hundred metres off shore and you have to swim in the rest of the way, so we couldn't justify risking the camera. Oh well, somethings are best remembered.

We topped off the trip with a dip in the sea after dark with snorkeling gear as this area is lucky enough to have bio-luminesent plankton which glow in the dark when you wave your arms and legs about. Very strange sensation when you have 20 people in the water doing the same thing and lighting up sea around you!

After another day on the beach we headed back to the mainland and then on a night bus up to Siem Reap / Angkor Wat after bumping into a couple of Danish girls -Sasja and Mia - who we first met way back in Hanoi several weeks earlier. Not a straight forward journey...but then this is a "Harrison Holiday"....