Koh Rong Sanloem

Koh Rong Sanloem - a story of nature‘s beauty and human destruction. The smaller and less inhabited island of Cambodia is said to be one of the most beautiful places in SEA, and we bet it was - sadly, the emphasis is on the past tense. In recent years, the government has started to sell land on the island to apparently unknown big companies (chinese by rumours), not really caring whether the land is already ‚rented‘ and/or occupied by a business such as guesthouses. The result is an island currently under con(and de-)struction, dominated by remains of demolished hotels, bars and restaurants and swaths of treeless mud-roads carving through the former djungle.
Still, you definitely see the remains of its former beauty if you choose your place wisely. Even on the main beach where everyone gets dropped off to get to their party hostels, the sand is white and the water a beautiful turquoise blue (mostly 😉). Not being the party animals we chose to stay at the sunset beach, which is only accessible by a 35-minutes trek through the djungle - an adventure for sure, definitely making you think twice about going to other places on the island 😂 We chose the Robinson Bungalows, a beautiful, very natural and cozy set of bamboo bungalows and a main area as restaurant. If you ever find yourself in Koh Rong Sanloem, go to this place!! It is beautiful, the Swiss owner and his staff are all super nice and interesting to talk to, and the food was really really good!! However, try to avoid the rainy season as the bungalows are not fully concipated for rainy weather and being adjacent to the djungle gives you one thing especially: a shit ton of mosquitos. After our initial trek to the bungalows in the rain (as I said, an adventure for sure), we both agreed that we have never seen so many mosquitos in our lifes 😂 And, while Gilles tends to be the mosquito target in Switzerland, it is the other way in Asia and Alina is quite literally being eaten alive - never mind the super strong insect repellent applied. Fun times (for Alina).
So, due to most of the days being rainy, the coastline being wild in response, and literally having no wifi whatsoever at our beach, we resorted to reading, sleeping, eating, some swimming if possible and just hanging out in our damp bungalow - sounds a lot worse than it was 😉Read more