Ants stole my contact lenses and then I kicked a jelly fish

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We had heard and read good things about the island Kho Tonsay (Rabbit Island) which is on the south coast of Cambodia and so with the lure of sitting on a beach for a few days we set off. In an effort to save money we opted for the night bus to save a nights accommodation. The downside was that the night bus did not leave till 8pm and our hotel kicked out at 12 so we had 8 hours of wondering around not doing much (we ended up taking advantage of the $0.50 beer...the theory was it would help us sleep...it didn't it just made me wee a lot). So eventually we got on the bus and while I'm getting better at sleeping on things its still going to be difficult for anyone to get any sleep when there is a Cambodian girl singing (very badly) in the drivers cabin waaay into the night. I have no idea why everyone in Asia thinks they can sing, nor why the hell they insist on singing very very bad songs...think Peter Andre level of awful.

So after a night of not much sleep and ever increasing annoyance, we got dropped off in Kampot at 6 in the morning. Found a mini bus that was heading to Kep but not till 8. So we had the worst breakfast we have eaten so far...it was meant to be chicken soup but was really just water with chicken bones floating in it. After that it was an extremely squashed mini bus journey to Kep. By this point it as about half 10 and we were exhausted and a bit minty so rather than trying to negotiate a boat over to the island we opted to stay in Kep for a night. We had read in the guide book about a tree top bungalow place which was meant to be lovely but after getting our minibus to drop us off there we found that it was full. Gutted. The only other place anywhere near was the Veranda Hotel. This was well out of our normal price range being $38 but we were shattered and figured we had just saved a nights accommodation by getting the night bus anyway so decided to treat ourselves.

It was a lovely hotel with amazing views out to sea and our bungalow had a balcony with a hammock that had a great view of the sunset. We went to eat at the tree top place and had french themed food and retired to relax on our balcony. The next day we packed up and headed for Kho Tonsay but not before discovering that in the night my contact lenses had mysteriously disappeared. I take them out every night and put them by the sink but they were not there that morning. The

ONLY

explanation is that fire ants nicked them. There were millions of them creeping around our room and they were quite big, yeah so Cambodia owes me a pair of contacts.

After cursing the ants we got a tuk tuk for our hotel down to the pier and asked the bloke where was the nearest cash point. He sort of said oooh its back at Kampot. Totally unwilling to believe this (Kampot was about 40 minutes away...the town we has already been through) we checked the guide book and had a look around but there were no cash point. Not happy, so it was back to Kampot. It was not that bad though as I managed to pick up a few bits that we were running low on (Andy had still not gotten over how much conditioner i use on my hair) and it was back to Kep. He dropped us off at the pier and it was pretty easy to buy a ticket to the island. There were quite a few people waiting to go over to the island and the worrying bit was when they sorted you all into nationality. It was odd and we still cant figure out what the reason was. Andy reckoned it was for when we sunk so they would only have to call one embassy.

The island was amazing. It was a proper tropical island with white sand and palm trees. There were little bamboo bungalows along the beach which back onto jungle. The best bit was how undeveloped the whole place was, there was only one row of about 4-5 cafes on the beach and hardly any people. It probably had something to do with the fact that the island only had 3 hours of electricity a day from 6:30 until 10:30. Each cafe had its own pack of dogs, a few chickens with chicks and plenty of noisy roosters. Emma even began to bond with the dogs!

Besides the amazing beach and huts the food on the island was something else. As there was no electricity for fridges everything was mainly noodles and seafood. We sat on the beach each night having a few beers (really cheap at 3000RL - about $1) and watched the locals go to the shore line at about sunset and collect cockle things, massive shrimps and big nets full of huge bright blue crabs. Neither of us had ever eaten a proper crab before and didn't really know where to start so we stuck to the shrimps for the first few night. They were so nice but really messy and you had to go and wash your hands in the sea afterward. Eventually we could not resist having a go at the crabs and after a few nights of watching other people we built up the nerve to order a plate overflowing with them for $4. They had been cooked in the local Kampot pepper (this is about 5 quid for 40g back home but they throw it on everything out here). After a few false starts we managed to crack them open and they were lovely but again really messy!

We spent every day doing pretty much the same thing - lazing around on the beach and eating. I was a bit sketchy about going in the water because I hate jellyfish and there were a few hanging around. Eww. Apparently the ones that stung didn't really come to shore but you saw giant dead ones which had been washed up. The ones that stuck to the shallow shore line were the jelly blobs that didn't sting but it was dead weird (and horrible) walking into the water and kicking jellyblobs. Andy didn't believe there were any for ages until he was sitting in the water and one floated past. He caught it and made me hold it in an attempt to get rid of my fear of them...it didn't work, I still hate them.



Sorry to interrupt Emma's rant about her crazy conspiracies and erratic fears but there were a few more things that happened on Koh Tonsay. The most notable of which was the day we were forced out of our hut by some very determined fire ants much to the amusement of the locals. We (that is to say Emma) had left a packet of opened sunflower seeds in her hand luggage which was tucked safely away in her rucksack. After a day on the Island we began to see lots of ants scurrying around her bag. We ignored them and it wasn't until a few days later when Emma dug into the recesses of her bag to get some shoes that we discovered the full extent. A line of ants had been constantly working its way up the back of her bag and into her hand luggage. We saw some of them carrying chunks of seed the same size as themselves. Emma was obviously calm cool and..... she screamed that they were all over her clothes and they were fire ants so they would bite. Step up Andy - I got the bag out of our hut and onto the grass outside got the seeds out and the hand luggage with most of the ants on it. All this with only about 10 bites - not bad going. Emma was providing moral support although she was so far away I can't be sure that's what she was doing. The French bloke who was next door to us stood offering help and repeating how amazing it was. After forming a bridge from a twig and placing the tasty seeds at the other end we managed to coax the ants away from her backpack and eventually with the handy brush that came with our room we were ant free (although Emma did insist that she had ants in her pants for days to come).

We decided to stretch our legs on one of the last days there and go for a walk around the Island. We had heard that this would take about 3 hours and at parts there were no roads and so you could end up in the sea or the jungle. We set off early for us (3pm) and went past crab and shrimp farms on the other side of the island. It was pretty tough going and most of the time we weren't seeing the nicest parts of the island. After an hour of walking and no change in the scenery we turned back on ourselves and decided our time would be better served taking in the sunset from a comfy spot on the beach. We later found out from an ozzy couple called Paul and Laura that we had taken the wrong route - nice one Andy. Paul had come to our rescue on day 1 of Koh Tonsay when we realised we had come to the island without any insect repellent. He was going to the mainland the next day to use a phone and picked some up for us - Legend.

We got back and both got in the water for a quick swim. As it was nearing dusk the wildlife in the water was the best we had seen. There were a selection of hermit crabs that we attempted to race but to no avail (they were just being lazy we think). We also found a really small octopus (about the size of a stamp) in a shell. There was a also a huge starfish on the shore. Unlike the crabs and octopus we didn't know if it was safe to pick this up so we gave it a wide berth. Whilst we were messing around with the crabs we were put to shame by a local lad who was storming down the beach with a starfish in each hand. Not only was he braver than us he was also rubbing it in by whacking the two of them together. Guess they are safe then.....



We stayed on the island for about 5 days in total and would of stayed longer but we had worked out that we only had 35-ish days before we flew out to Burma and it was apparently going to take 5 days to get our visa. We also wanted to get to Ho Chi Mihn for the new year celebration Tet, trek up a mountain near Hanoi, get the slow boat down the Mekong in Laos and see all of north Thailand so we figured we should get moving...

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