Week 20 - Kampot, trip to Thailand + Koh Chang

We then went to Kampot together and booked a hostel there together. That turned out to be an absolute stroke of luck. The pictures online were not, as is so often the case, fake, but just like reality. The pool was really resort-like and the attached restaurant was super tasty and cheap and everything was super clean. So you basically don't have to leave the area at all🫣 That's exactly what we hardly did, except for the night market and the supermarket. Normally that's not my travel style, but after a lot of disgusting and 'okay' hostels you just have to enjoy the opportunity and take advantage of it. Unfortunatelyrrr I got food poisoning on the third day because I ate a falafel and ayran at a questionable snack bar (my fault). That's why I lay flat for a whole day and had to go to the toilet every 3 seconds🫨 Very unpleasant, but I think I got out of it okay because I've heard a lot of horror stories. And luckily it happened to me in this great hostel, so it wasn't that bad.

Since my bus trip to Thailand and my hostel there were already booked, I had no choice but to take the five-hour bus trip to the Cambodian border town the next day. Oh man, what a ride again! There were still a lot of white people at the bus station, but they all wanted to go to the islands. My destination was a little more unusual, which is why a small yellow minibus packed with locals picked me up. They kindly gave me the passenger seat. A good half hour had passed before we left the city because everyone had to buy snacks (quail eggs, mussels, snails and other things that I couldn't identify) and iced coffee in plastic bags. In addition, everyone was picked up individually from home. Some people only have a 1m long chilled fish in Styrofoam boxes as luggage. You got used to the smell after a few minutes. The ride begins and the driver, who is apparently also a DJ, turns on the loudest noise on his YouTube app. There's chatter behind me that my noise-cancelling headphones can only suppress very poorly. After half an hour suddenly comes the bumpiest gravel road that I think I have experienced on all my trips so far and it lasted for a few hours. Luckily, my motion sickness is now a thing of the past, otherwise I think I would have had a hard time surviving this trip... But everyone was super friendly to me and, surprisingly, we arrived on time.

However, my actual trip to Thailand the next day went very well. I was driven to the border on a scooter, then I was pushed from checkpoint to checkpoint and my driver sat on the curb of some 7/11 supermarket and greeted me with a grin. There were two others in our minibus who did a visa run (hopping over the border once and back to extend the visa). One of them was a Russian who first bought 100 cans of Cambodia beer over there!? It doesn't taste much different than the Thai... Well, yay, finally back in Thailand, I don't know why it feels so good. After chugging the car ferry from Trat to Koh Chang for 20 minutes, we went to my next stop, the small oasis of 'Lonely Beach'. My hostel here was extremely social with an active WhatsApp group and everything else.

Overall, Koh Chang really impressed me. Definitely even more remote from the typical tourist routes and therefore relatively empty here by Thailand standards. My first stop, the Lonely Beach, is also a bit more remote from the main town and seems a bit sleepy. There is a road that runs around the island and is quite something. Very steep and very curvy, which is why I didn't rent a scooter. But I was able to go on a trip because Andi (from Germany) offered to go around the island and take me with him. On the other side we met Nelly (from Australia) and drove to the last tip, where there are some tiny islands and about 3 tourists. In general, the other side of the island, which is separated by the huge national park in the middle of the island, was still undiscovered. As soon as you drive past the pier in the north, you are immersed in a quiet natural world and are one of the few on the road. We then kayaked around the islands for three hours, which ended up being really tiring with the waves. Afterwards we went to a super cute restaurant with sooo good food. I ate a super delicious Khao Soi, which is actually only available in the north. When we drove back for 1.5 hours in the dark, we saw a huge snake in the middle of the road (the biggest I've seen in the wild so far🫨). In general, the jungle is noticeable here, as there are also a comparatively large number of monkeys on the island. Quite a few in the hostel have also talked about monkey attacks, which is why I'm super careful (just don't look in the eyes, don't carry food around, don't wear anything reflective and just stay out of the way). They look so mean too!

During the remaining days I ate all the dishes that I had been looking forward to for so long. Mango sticky rice, chicken noodle soup, massaman curry, pad thai (of course), stir fry with thai basil and much more. Every day we had the fruit lady cut two mangoes, coconuts on the beach, etc. 😋

Since I like it here so much, I booked a hostel on the same island but two towns away for the next 4 days.