We booked this accommodation with the hardest beds in the world “only” for 3 nights and we are not willing to stay longer, even we love how it looks, we need some proper sleep. So our plan for this morning is to find some private room with a big soft bed. We don´t even bother to open the Mr Google – lets do it the old fashion way!
Well – that was easier than we thought – only 3 doors down from our hostel we see a sign “Rooms available”. This place is run by locals, we are surprised by quite good English. It is a little place with a couple of private rooms and little kitchen (understand – little restaurant). The lady is taking me to the room straight away – she wants me to see it before we say yes. Truly we don´t care how it looks, our terms are a big SOFT bed, air conditioning, be able to lock the door (and ensuite bathroom with no smell would be a bonus). Haha the room meets all five points and even the cost is amazing – same what we payed in 14-bed dorm.
Yaaaay, we got our room, it was as simple as that!!! 😀 We have to do this more often – I mean no bookings, it seems that it works quite well and even many other people we´ve met do it the same way. Must be something about it!
Well we have to pack our stuff in the Hostel first – luckily we don´t have to carry our bags that far away. Before we pay our bill I spotted a sign at the reception: “If you give us a review on Tripadviser or Hostelworld you get free breakfast or cocktail.” Haha yaaaaay!!! Truly there is not much to complain at this place. Everything is gorgeous, except the hard beds (truly the most important thing). Well I wrote my review (where I didn´t forget to mention the disappointment about the beds) the receptionist reads it carefully and then I can order the most amazing breakfast with a freshly baked bread and yummy omelette. I cannot believe that Steve cannot be bothered to do the same.
Another thing we have to do today is our laundry. Since we travel with only little bags, we have less clothing and we have to do our laundry more often – especially in this heat, I sweat so much and stink even more. (Especially when I go to the gym 😀 ) Haha but it is still easy to get into the situation, where you recycle your clothing by sniffing it and putting it on again with words: “It actually doesn´t smell that bad.” 😀 😀 😀
It is impossible to find laundry, where we can do it ourselves, it is always some little local family business we have to rely on. Not sure why, but nobody wants to do our laundry at this time (it is just past midday) – they are saying it is too late. What do they mean? In the end I manage to find one young lady, who is willing to help. She is not happy, when I say, we need it by 8am in the morning, but in the end she nods her head and takes the stinky bag from me. Thank God, hopefully it will be really done by the time we need or we are going to be in troubles.
The plan for the rest of the day is clear – first to go down south to the “dream beach” (Sao Beach) and then up north where we wanted to go yesterday and explore the rest of the island. We extended the scooter rental and headed to our adventures. We already know the way to the beach, so we are enjoying the ride this time, without stressing about turns or if we are going the right way.
When we arrive, my heart beats with happiness – BEACH!!! Steve is lying down into the shade under one of the palm trees and taking his kindle – oh yeah, he reads a lot on this trip, good for him. I am wandering around in my bikini, sitting in the crystal clear water – it is quite nice and shallow. And I cannot forget about the “swing in paradise” – oh, there is nothing else to wish for! This is relaxing heaven!
When I manage to recharge my batteries at 100% and print all of this into my memories (this will be the moment, that I will imagine when I sit somewhere in the office – working :-D). “Lets go, darling! Time to explore.”. We pack our stuff, jump on our scooter and get back to the room, have a shower and get ready for our trip up north.
Haha we didn´t miss the right turn this time and we are heading the right way – yaaay! Steve is amazing, how he managed to get use to this traffic, I admire him – he drives with caution and beeps our horn to keep us safe :-D. I was a bit worried on the beginning, when I saw all the tourist having “scooter injuries” – it never looked very nice. But Steve is doing just fine! He´s got this!
He calls me “the navigator”, which makes me a little bit nervous – their useless and miss-scaled maps are not very good for navigating. But luckily our offline Google maps work on our phone, so when we aren´t sure, phone will always help.
The tourists are slowly disappearing and I am just holding onto Steve and enjoying the views of the palm and pepper trees plantations that are shinning green between hills of garbage. The road is quite nice and the traffic is getting much easier. We are passing a few massive gates leading “nowhere”. These are some very expensive resorts. The driveways are so long, you cannot even see the buildings on the other end. Haha is this really necessary? Who can afford something like this?
Well there must be very rich people in this world, because we can see even bigger resorts being build. This island will be a huge tourist money maker one day! You should see it! THOUSANDS of little beautifully looking houses with a small trees and palms freshly planted around them. Everything seem empty, but just wait – in a few years, this will me a massacre!
After 20 minutes of driving we find ourselves in a thick stinky smoke, we almost cannot see anything. Oh yeah – here they burn all their rubbish. You can see huge smoky mountains of the most disgusting garbage on the both sides of the road. There are local people wrapped in long clothes and facemasks, dealing with this yuckiness. They are burning EVERYTHING! I believe they are trying to burn even the cans and all the plastic. I don´t know, if I should be happy about them realizing their “waste problems” or cry for the environmental disaster.
When we finally get out, from the most horrendous place, you can smell us from 3km away – we stink so badly! Yuck! How can those people survive whole days working in that smoke? (Haha I believe they are never touched by mosquitoes :-D. Oh yeah this island is full of them – we had to get the Bushman bug spray from the bottom of our pack (that Australian stuff is just awesome!).
When we get higher north, we get into a little dusty village. I am wondering, what do this people do for living, because everything is so quiet and empty. I know there is some little resort near by – but I doubt that people from there come here very often to spend their money. You can see plenty of food, fruit, drinks, clothing – it really makes me wonder who is buying this stuff.
North of this island made me a bit disappointed – I expected fabulous beaches (like the ones down south), but the opposite has been waiting here for us. Ahhhh well…
They have a little pagoda here, so we take our shoes off (as you always have to do before entering) and go to admire some architecture. At least something interesting.
Steve would love to fly the drone, so we are trying to find some quieter place close to the water, but we are failing miserably. This is one big fishing village, which is built directly above the water. We are driving through a narrow alley – haha like in a Bond movie – it feels like we are passing through the living rooms of the people who live here. All the “houses” are so close to each other, it seems they are one big family. They have no sense of privacy – you cannot see any doors you could close. I would be even surprised if their toilet had a door.
We are zigzagging between kids, dogs, cats, struggling to avoid scooters going in the opposite direction. We are crossing little bridges over the smelliest and most disgusting treams full of mud and garbage – oh and those kids are playing right there!
We parked our scooter in one of the little alleys – ehm I mean in the living room of some locals :-D). We are slowly wondering through, searching for some place where we could fly. It is obvious, there aren´t many tourist coming to this place – we are being watched from everywhere. If I am being honest, I am not feeling threatened by any means. (Not only because they are much smaller than me :-D.) People here always return a smile, they are very friendly and always try to help. (I wouldn´t be that confident in South America – we would be probably dead by now :-D).
Kids are running around shouting at us their “Hello!” Sometimes we even here “How are you?” or “What is your name?”. It is good to know, that they are leading their kids to learn English. It will make their future life, much easier. They love tourists – they love to touch you, or give a high five. They always attack my wrists – admiring my watch and bracelets. But sometimes they go over the top (they are trying what you can handle), so you have to show them, where is the edge.
After a while of walking we are finding a nice pier leading to some kind of restaurant above the water. Ideal for the take-off for our “toy”. You would have to see the amazement, when we start to pull out the drone and camera. All the children and even adults are shouting at each other. It is obvious that they have seen all this before. They know what it is. Haha you would be surprised, some of the kids are having better phone than me – I believe there is a wifi here and also the 3G is an absolutely normal thing even at places like this. Seems ridiculous, when you see in what conditions they live in here.
I was afraid that everybody will jump on our drone while taking off, but they were very cautious and careful. Everyone is trying to communicate – especially Steve is surrounded by kids and older women who are peaking over his shoulder. Kids are posing for me and I have to always show them the pictures. You can see the amazed faces of mothers – when they see the photos – they seem moved. (My plan is to print them out, when we get home, and send the pics to them. I have done it after our trip in South America – what an amazing feeling!)
Everybody is watching us – it seems like entire village knows we are here – you can see curious faces in windows and people are getting on their verandas – even the fishermen who are catching fish right beneath their houses stopped (haha yeaaaah – they are fishing right in that disgusting mess – yuck!).
Lets take last shots and put everything back into the backpack. Saying goodbye to everybody – wow, what an experience. Children are waving at us and yelling: “Bye, bye!” and running behind us. We are jumping on our scooter and trying to get out from the street labyrinth. Well we have only one hour of sunlight left, so the time is pushing us – we don´t want to be stuck in the darkness.
OMG – the road situation changed so much! It is so crowded – so busy! It is after five o´clock and I believe that everybody just finished at work. That means all the workers and builders from the resort constructions got on their scooters or busses (understand big trucks full of standing people) and trying to make their way home. Now I understand all the little shops around – they are overflowing by people – having a dinner, buying some groceries, fruits, having a beer – it is like a massive anthill! I wouldn´t believe how many people (mainly men) work at those resorts. Probably thousands! Who pays their bill? Do these people realize that they are building palaces for the rich foreigners and they are living in a little shed between big piles of garbage?
We are shining like a bulb in this traffic jam – we are the only tourist again 😀 and it of course attracts attention – haha what a surprise! Some people are just staring at us – they look very exhausted. Others are shouting at us, waving, circling around us – that makes us laugh. We are like little kids – just playing around and laughing out loud.
The journey back takes much longer than we expected – the rush hour made it a bit more difficult – and we are getting “home” almost in the darkness.
Before we left for our trip – we were offered that the owners will make us some Vietnamese traditional dinner. Ohhh we couldn´t resist! The first time after a long time, we don´t have to hunt for a dinner. Mango salad and homemade spring rolls sound really amazing, especially after a long day on motorbike.
Dinner is almost ready, while we arrive – such a luxury! We sit down to one of the wooden tables and wait – it brings a feeling of home, when they are bringing all that fresh goodness!
Mango salad surprises me a lot – I thought it will be a lettuce with some mango pieces – haha terrible European thinking! It is finely grated green mango with some herbs, chilli flakes, lime, sesame oil, sugar and salt and sprinkled with chopped peanuts (they put them everywhere and into every meal they can – poor people with nuts allergies, they cannot even think about going to Vietnam!) Even though it doesn´t look that appealing it tastes pretty good – yummy!
The spring rolls in other hand look absolutely amazing – Steve is not even able to wait to cool them down, he wants them right now! (He is never patient, when he has food in front of him, never! :-D) He rather burn his mouth than wait. This dinner was a great way to end our day! Such a satisfaction! 😀
We thank for the dinner and pay (of course) and slowly move ourselves into our air-conditioned private room – finally some moment of privacy! Not noisy people around… just us!
Tomorrow is a big day – getting up before 8am, picking up our laundry and get on a journey towards Cambodia and a magical island Koh Rong. Steve didn´t want to go – he says we will see many islands during our trip. But I am not done with beaches, not yet! I need more relaxing time – I am not ready for inland yet. Moreover it should be much less touristy than here – white sand, crystal clear water! Are we there yet? Are we there yet? 😀
