Koh Rong/Sihanoukville

February 23 – Going out for a late night of drinking and dancing is probably never a good idea when you need to get on a minibus at 7am.  Rushingly I threw all my things into my bags and ran outside to catch our bus to Sihanoukville.  Got there around 12pm and rushed to get on the 1pm ferry to Koh Rong.  That’s about the time I realized I’d either lost the GoPro or it had been taken when I was in Phnom Penh.  Got on the very shaky ferry over to Koh Rong feeling hungover and depressed about my recent loss, looked around for a place for the night and found two double beds for $6.50 each/night.  Walked down the beach and had dinner at Coco’s (bacon wrapped chicken and cabbage), where we would eat most nights on Koh Rong.

February 24 – $1 soup for breakfast, $1 smoothie for lunch, spent a few hours lying on the beach, dinner again at Coco’s (pumpkin soup) and quiz night there.

February 25 – Moved things over to Paradise Bungalows ($35/night).  Spent a few hours on the beach, napped, ate at Coco’s again.

February 26/27 – Pretty much dead to the world.  Spent a full 48 hours without leaving my little beach bungalow.  Worst part was that I didn’t even sleep during the day, I just laid there awake, wallowing in my misery.  It’s scary how mentally out of it I was though.  When you’re staring at the wall for 10 hours but you never get bored you know something’s wrong.  Started another round of Cipro and started feeling a bit better.  Most exciting thing that happened for me those two days was walking into the bungalow and seeing a huge monkey eating the Pringles Sam had left in the room.

February 28 – Seeing as I’d lost my GoPro on the way to Koh Rong and got deathly ill while there, I was in a bit of a rush to get off the island.  Pia and I took the speed boat back to Sihanoukville ($15) and stayed at Stone Boutique Hotel with Pia for the night.  She went with me to the Vietnam Embassy to get visas for Sam and I and then we biked around town.  It was hot and exhausting and I hadn’t really eaten anything in the last 72 hours but it was so nice to get out and do something active.  Spent the night relaxing in our hotel room watching BBC news (cmon Ukraine get It together).

March 1 – Walked Pia to the bus station in the morning and then picked up our Vietnam visas ($60).  Spent most of the day watching movies and then went downtown with Sam once she got over to the hotel.

March 2 – Biked to Sokha Beach with Sam and spent a few hours there, grabbed some pizza downtown, checked out and got to bus station.  Sleeping bus to Ho Chi Minh and transfer to VIP bus.  I have no idea how to explain the concept of this sleeping bus.  It’s rows of tiny cubbies that if happen to be traveling alone, you’d be sharing comfortably with a stranger.  Probably would have preferred taking that all the way to HCM, because the VIP bus only reclines 70% and the airconditioning was spotty.