Olives and Elephants

Our day's mission is to cross the border to Cambodia without getting completely scammed and hating every second of it. That sounds really negative, but we've read that this border crossing is a difficult one. We opted for the eVisa for less hassle, have all of our paperwork in order, and small bills for any "fees" aka bribes we may need. 

We're packed and ready to go out and meet our ride, but our upgraded room with sliding glass doors wants us to stay forever. The lock on this door has been tricky and naturally this morning we cannot get it to budge. We're trapped inside! Ryan is struggling to make this slippery knob turn while I'm banging on the dark tinted glass hoping someone will notice at this early hour. Reminder: it's low season, there's only one ride to Cambodia each day, hardly anyone is around and our room is at the very back of the property far from the road where our ride is coming... It doesn't look good. 

Our neighbor and friend Steve with his breakfast of a half watermelon eaten with a spoon (the best way to eat watermelon), walks up to our door with a Thai man and says, "Wake up you lazy Americans!" He then realizes we're right behind the glass and that something's not right. Steve goes to call on Nida who is staying in one of the bungalows because a branch fell through the roof of her staff room (I don't know what's going on with the ceilings around here). She's in the shower and can't hear him to get us a key to try unlocking it from the outside. Great...

Eventually through the power of persistence and cursing, the lock releases and we're all clear to go. Luckily our driver was patient with us through the ordeal but we soon realized we're the only two in the van so he wasn't going anywhere without us anyways. We get to the border without issue and are handed over to a different guy, we're not sure what for but he seems to be our chaperone for the crossing. He leads us to a table labeled "Health Check" where a woman points a laser at our foreheads, says, "No Ebola," then asks for money. Nope, but thank you for the laser treatment. The rest is easy peasy as we already have our visas and zero bribes happen. 

We cross over to Cambodia and are led to a scenic muddy gravel parking lot to one of many tents that sell sodas and have handwritten "Money Exchange" signs. We tell him we don't need to exchange anything but we're instructed to wait here and our chaperone asks for money. Nope, but thanks for standing beside us during this tough time. We sit down with Money Exchange man and he tells us our big bus won't be here for another two hours but if we'd like, there's a VIP van leaving now for an extra cost. Oh how convenient! We just lean back and let him know we have no where else to be so we'll wait for that big bus we already paid for. We take out our cards and start getting competitive playing Spit to pass the time and look out to the beautiful rainy filthy parking lot. Within ten minutes Money Exchange man is on the phone, yelling something (everyone yells), hangs up and says our bus is here. HA, of course it is! Shortest two hour wait of my life. We think his conversation went something like, "These white people aren't paying anything. They're happy with this card game. Get them out of here before they ruin our ruse for the next group!"

In our van (which must be that special VIP option) we meet Jukka and Sibel who got together only five months ago. They're headed to Otres Village, instead of Sihanoukville, where they have just acquired a property of ten bungalows and have invited us to stay. Having no plans at all just works out and we have our new home in Otres Village.

Since it's so hot, everyone is out on their front porch and we have our own busy neighborhood block with cows and chickens passing through. Aside from the new puppies, our favorite neighbor is Colm who can talk our ears off and keep us laughing all day. Otres is a funny place in that there are two beachfront sections (creatively named Otres 1&2) separated by land cleared for development years ago, and then the village further inland. It's practically deserted and we only come across locals and expats trying to live that beach life dream. The spirit houses are cute, the earth is red, the tuk tuk's are creative and women pick mangoes from the bucket of a bulldozer. At night, the photoplankton light up the waves like little sparklers but that you'll have to see for yourself. 

Believe it or not, as much as Otres Beach is really a beautiful white sand beach, I didn't take a single picture of it. Rainy season has us a bit camera shy as we depend on our phones for much more than just photos. Our first day, we were caught in a monsoon that had us running to the closest restaurant, which gave us views of two water buffalo in a field who also wanted to seek shelter. They were running hard in circles trying to break the rope they're tied to. And every time they ran towards the restaurant I crossed my fingers that the rope held just a bit longer so their trajectory wasn't in our direction. These guys are big! One broke free and stood by his buddy for moral support until the rain pounded even harder when he ran for shelter along the tree line. The other was just too tired after a while and gave up to the elements. 

We watched sunset while a Cambodian man made the rounds to each group of foreigners on the beach making them really uncomfortable... Wondering what he was up to we waited our turn and finally figured out he was just trying to practice his English. Not speaking English well, he was just really awkward about it and looked like a total creep. Appearances can be deceiving, something we'll learn over and over again in Cambodia. 

Even though our last island was a magical postcard scene come to life, the ocean did not provide the relief from the heat that we needed. There aren't many or really any waves to speak of around these islands so the water is still and shallow, soaking up the sun creating a bath of boiling water. Your typical burning feet sprint across the hot sand does not end in sweet relief at the water's edge, instead we keep running far into the ocean but eventually give up and just sit down in the thigh deep warm water. But now we're on Koh Chang and have a SHADED pool and daily life just got so much better! We can also play a mean game of pool or at least one where I'll probably get most of the balls in.

We found our second favorite Thai restaurant called The Kitchen (no one can beat Binh's Yada Kitchen in Chiang Mai), so we may stay here forever. Bananas in coconut cream is heaven and they make curry so spicy, Ryan struggles through every bite loving every sweaty minute of it. AND the fruit stands are fully stocked with so much mango and our new favorite mangosteen! If you haven't tried it, get to an Asian market to try to find it. Go for the smaller slightly squishy ones and get at least two pounds of them. Trust me. 

Koh Chang is normally overrun with tourists, and the northern end is still quite busy, but the hellish heat and soon to be rainy season have kept most travelers away. We easily fall into a routine of beach workouts, eating well and hanging out with the otherwise bored staff and the grumpy-looking dog Frankie at our bungalow. Nida is one of the staff who happens to share the same birthday with Ryan and although it's a few weeks away, she invites us to her neighborhood for a BBQ Birthday party at her house on Khlong Koi, a remote village on the southern end of the island. That sounds like a wonderful plan to us so we're sticking around. And will someone get all of the tourists off the street please?!

This is a jungle island with some serious mountains making for really really really fun motorbike days. 

I wish I could do justice to the rough steep roads Ryan maneuvered us safely through but these will have to do.

With rainy season comes power outages,  aka romantic candlelit dinners, and finally a cool ocean that's full of waves to play in! This is the best ocean yet! 

One morning after a particularly intense rain, we're in bed doing our morning trolling and we heard monkeys doing their monkey business and banging around on our roof. Ryan and I laughed as some dust from the ceiling sprinkled on him after a particularly loud monkey bang. Within minutes Ryan points to the ceiling where a line is widening between the sheet rock panels. We jump to opposite sides of the room, he out the door, me to the bathroom, as the whole ceiling comes crashing down onto our bed! HA! Did that just happen?! Funny thing is that a few years ago in Philly, the kitchen ceiling of our apartment fell in almost on top of us so this situation isn't new... How many people can say they have had two ceilings fall on them? Strange as that is, we get to work checking that nothing is damaged and cleaning up to move out. I have a hefty bruise on my ankle and since I'm so behind on blog posts, I can tell you it is still healing two months later. We're upgraded to one of the newer rooms and the theories of what happened are flying. Some say monkeys, some say rain, some say construction and one awful person suggested it was the weight of a snake... All is well that ends well but it was an interesting morning. 

Our time on Koh Chang is coming to a close but we have two birthday's to celebrate before we go. We have the whole day to hang out with Nida and her neighbors getting ready for the party tonight. We hit up the market, then head to her village where her neighbors forage through the nearby mountains for wild mushrooms and have a healthy garden. These mushrooms look absolutely crazy and I don't know who goes first when trying out a new kind. With fresh ingredients in hand we start cooking at Nida's house some green curry, mushroom soup and pork BBQ. It's perfect as Ryan loves cooking but hardly gets the chance on the road. All of our Koh Chang buds are there, Cliff, Chris even Steve and Ayala are back from Cambodia to celebrate. Nida's friends from the local dive shop are also fantastic musicians and put on a show. The evening is beautiful until the rains come and we all squeeze into Nida's home. Eventually the power goes out and the band strikes up again. Eventually the rains die down and we head to the nearby bungalow Nida arranged for us and we go to bed with swirling breezes all around us. It was an excellent way to cap off our time here with these lovely people.