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Published: March 25th 2008
Our house
This is our bungalow, pictured from the sea.A belated Happy Easter to all you happy readers out there!!
Well, it's Tuesday evening at 7.15pm and we are now back on mainland and checked back into Coasters after sailing 13kms in a little boat not much bigger than Pill Ferry (for those of you who remember!) and, there were 20ish of us on there. The sea was quite rough, so it was a little hairy to say the least, but we got back safely, if a little wet. There are no jetty's out here, they just point the boat at the land, stop the engine about 30 feet short of the beach and then we drift in. We then have to disembark into the water (about waist deep), with bags on top of our heads. Different eh?
What can we say about Bamboo Island (Koh Russei), it was absolute paradise. The island itself is beach on two sides and in the middle is jungle. There are several locals that live on the island all year around, but the island is owned by The Military and so will possibly be saved from the big money who want to turn all the islands into 5 star resorts, which will
What an outlook!
View from our verandah. kill the place.
We stayed in the largest bungalow on the island and one of only a few that had an attached bathroom. And the bathroom was a little different - the toilet was a western toilet, but it was very low (Dave found is particularly hard going with such long legs!), and also the seat was broken, so it was fairly hard and cold. There was also no flush, so you had a large container which you had to keep full of water and use this to flush the loo! The shower was cold (obviously as there was no hot water anyway), but the bathroom was huge, it was almost like a football team shower room. We had the bungalow that sleeps 4 people, so there was a double bed and a double mattress on the floor, but there was tons of room, even with a dressing area. It was fab, as you can see from the photo.
We had a good first night in the bungalow, although there was a thunder and lightning storm going on overhead (it turned out to be a nightly occurance and we got used to it). But the absolute nightmare for
The beach
There were hammocks hanging all over the island. me (and those of you who know me well will understand) was that when I got out of bed in the morning and walked towards the bathroom, I found a rather huge tarantula on the floor - it was dead! But can you imagine, I was ready to pack my bag there and then. Dave got rid of it and told me it wasn't that big anyway, but now that we've left the island has admitted that he was shocked at the size of it!! Needless to say, I didn't sleep well after that and hunted the whole bungalow before I would even get into bed. The scariest thing of all is that the electric goes off at 10pm, so getting out of bed in the middle of the night to go the loo (and I go several times) was not the nicest experience. I had my head lamp on and my torch in hand. I'm surprised we didn't get complaints about the light show! But, anyway we survived and thankfully no more sightings of spiders or such like.
There were only about 20 bungalows on our side of the island and about 10 on the other side, so
Constantine in August?
Surely not, but Dave is carrying his Pit Bag. This is the other side of the island, almost deserted. It was beautiful. it was fairly quiet at night. But come 10am and the day trippers arrived on the island and it became much noisier. Some of the day trippers brought picnics and it was comical when they had finished to see all the island wilflife come in for the leftovers. First, came the chickens, then the cows, then the dogs, followed by birds and whoever else wanted to try their luck. It was amazing, but the cows knew the exact time to come down the beach every day.
I did a little snorkelling, but the sea became too rough to do it every day. The water was so warm it was like getting into a bath. Not at all like Treyarnon. We did wonder if Johnny (The Pit Monster) would consider opening up a surf shop on Bamboo? He wouldn't be short of volunteers to manage it for him.
We really enjoyed our stay on Bamboo and got to know the Cambodians who ran both the Bamboo Island Resort restaurant and the Koh Russei Cafe, both of which served delicious food and were very friendly and helpful. If anybody has got as far as Sihanoukville, they really much go and
Sunset
This was the sun setting over the island. stay on the island for a couple of days.
Well, we catch the bus tomorrow morning at 7.45 to Phnom Penh, where we will stay for one night before continuing our journey to Saigon. We will catch up again soon. Love to you all and keep the comments coming its great to hear from you all.
XX
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Anne Jones
non-member comment
SPIDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! alert
Nice to be in contact again, did'nt you bump into any of your friends on Bamboo Island? well we missed the snow but froze over Easter, most people did'nt know if it was Christmas or Easter!. Everything is fine at no;11, Beba has put on a bit of weight, but enjoyed her walk with Macy, I'll go down again tomorrow. no news so will close take care, Love Mum and Dadxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx