{"id":3243,"date":"2026-03-20T12:27:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T12:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/?p=3243"},"modified":"2026-03-21T17:54:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T17:54:18","slug":"thur-19th-mar-koh-rong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/?p=3243","title":{"rendered":"Thur 19th Mar – Koh Rong"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The island of Koh Rong has a small handful of areas and it’s hard to navigate between them. So there’s a big incentive to just hang out at your little beach. I personally was on Coconut Beach. This is the hotel next to me where I ordered easily the worst latte of my entire life. It was so bad I considered sending it back. In Cambodia. The coffee was so bad I considered sending it back and I was in Cambodia. That is an atrocious coffee. The machine must have been in cleaning mode, I can’t think of any other justification.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Sunrise means beach clean up. Hotel workers head to the beach en masse and rake up the rubbish deposited by the tide during the previous night. To be dumped in big black rubbish bags that the stray dogs frolic through in between roots, to drift back into the ocean once more. The cycle of Paradise. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A morning of reading passes quickly enough. There are no scheduled activities today, and Intrepid offer only diving as an optional extra. After lunch OTL goes rouge and books a boat tour. This is not a ‘safety first’ offering. There are no lifejackets. Rusty nails hold the boat together. The captain’s English is limited to ‘little fish’ and ‘big fish’. I am nervous but don’t want to seem like a loser with our little splinter tour group of four, so I shrug it off. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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It’s, of course, really pretty. Safety be damned.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We go for a snorkel first. It’s quite low visibility. Not sure who took this photo underwater. I personally didn’t bring my phone for fear of capsizing. In these 15-20 minutes of unsafe, unsupervised snorkeling I get burnt to an absolute crisp on my leg. Tanned and thin, tanned and thin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Before we go on the boat I share my high school sporting achievements: 9 pin bowling, ice skating, and fishing. I do NOT disappoint the group. I catch easily the biggest fish of the afternoon. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Okay, I had a little help reeling her in. When I got the large snag I gave a little (big) yelp and the captain came over, grabbed the line and said, “ohhhh, big fish”. Is there any phrase more validating? If my boss gave me half my bonus and just said “ohhhh, big fish”, I fear I would be nearly just as happy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Through supreme mastery of the Khmer language I managed to decline bbqing the fish in order to return back to dock at mowng brahm mouy (6 o’clock). The other three ladies are well impressed and so they should be! I am a hero among polyglots.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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It’s a good thing I got the time thing communicated otherwise we would have been coming back in the pitch black. It’s about an hour putter back to the dock.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Last full activity day (tomorrow is a five hour transit back to Phnom Penh, where I fly out of) in Cambodia was almost nice. Until I (inadvertently) cause total chaos in the group.

I mention on the boat that I won’t be coming to the informal group dinner the following night. I want a bit of alone time in the city, simple. The good Canadian suggests we do farewell dinner tonight. Sure, I’m happy to come along. OTL organises it via the group WhatsApp chat – she’s got some Italian place she wants to try on the otherside of the island so has a vested interest in organising it.

When we all get in the tuk-tuk to go to the dinner our tour guide remarks.. that’s a bit far away. And then things spiral.

As we’re on the way, the Australian that didn’t come on the boat remarks she really didn’t want pasta. She is a submissive personality and I am unclear why she’s choosing now to assert herself. This doesn’t go unnoticed.
OTL: Well you could have suggested an alternative on the chat
Other Australian (OA): I probably would have if I’d known it was Italian.
OTL: I posted the menu on the group WhatsApp.

Someone changes the subject. The tuk-tuk clunks along for thirty minutes. When we ‘arrive’ there’s nothing around. Some fairy lights and plastic tables and a Cambodian family smoking cigarettes.
Tour guide leader (TGL): is this the place OTL?
OTL: I’ve given the place name, I don’t have reception, this doesn’t look like it.
TGL converses rapidly in Khmer with the driver. We depart, in search again for the pasta OA despises.\u00a0

We’re taken 15 minutes away to a more populated area. OA raps rapidly on the back of the tuk-tuk glass. We pull up. OA jumps out of the car and says she is going to look around to ‘find something open’. TGL is flustered. Our location is two minutes down the road and have no reason to believe it is closed. OTL, a short tempered lady at the best of time, loses her shit. Refuses to get out of the tuk-tuk. Says she’s done. A flare up meets a flare up and tensions are high. Good Canadian says she regrets suggesting this. Lesson: never meddle in a group. You\u00a0might
not be the first voted out but you will create an unstable dynamic you no longer control. Tribe unity has decayed. An awkward dinner at a random restaurant follows. I’m relieved to be going to Ponderosa tomorrow.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thailand-laos-cambodia-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3243"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3261,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243\/revisions\/3261"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}