The incredible journey

After around 35 days flying, bussing and boating our way around 10 major places in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, Alice and I realised how much travelling we had packed into such a short space of time (probably too much). Although the adventure so far had been incredibly stimulating, it had also been head-spinningly intense. Being both mentally and physically exhausted, eventually we decided that travelling had been pretty hard work, and that it was only natural to want to take a break from it all. And before realising just how self-indulgent the concept was, we had it booked – a 4 day holiday from travelling, to the quiet island of Koh Rong Samloem, in Cambodia.

It was supposed to be an idyllic disconnection from social media, a stress-flattening coast along the ripples of tranquillity. All we wanted was to lie down on a quiet island beach for a few days, listen to music, read our kindles, go swimming and drink copious amounts of beer.

And the day we arrived, we found what seemed like the perfect opportunity to fulfil all our clichéd yet precious desires – the existence of Clearwater Bay, a deserted beach one-hour’s trek from the already quiet M’pay pier. If we made the journey along another beach and through a small jungle hiking trail, we would, we were told, be treated to a vast expanse of beach unspoiled by tourism, which we would have to share with only with one or two other visitors.

So, the next morning, we set off – bags full with snacks, headphones, kindles and even a borrowed snorkel – buoyant with excitement and expectation. We walked out of the village springing our way lightly over the sand. If only we knew what was coming…

And so begins my sorry tale:

There And Back Again: The Incredible Journey of Alice and Mark

As we left the village, we walked over a metal and wood bridge with two dragons for railings, painted blue and gold. ‘This bridge looks nice!’ we thought, ‘If the rest of the bridges are like this, this shouldn’t be too hard.’ We had been told the hike would take about an hour, mostly along the beach, but with around ten minutes of uphill climb through the jungle, where ‘the Chinese’ had cut a path. We’re not big hikers, and we’re both embarrassingly unfit right now, but at the outset, it didn’t seem like it would be much of a challenge.

Probably the first clue that the hike might not be as easy as we expected was the series of three log bridges we had to cross. During the light sprinkle of rain we had been getting, they felt as slippy as they looked, and I was glad to be wearing my hiking boots. Suffice to say I didn’t ninja warrior my way across them at high speed – I edged along very slowly, knowing that if I fell in the water, my phone would be kaput within seconds. Alice chose not to wear hiking boots, so she just took off her converse and walked along the shoreline.

Having successfully navigated the log bridges with all the grace of an anxious walrus, I started enjoying the serene, if overcast, view of the island’s coastline. And as that happened, the light sprinkle of rain that had been keeping us cool suddenly turned into something else altogether. Within seconds, sheets of rain were falling from a grey sky where giant clouds raced overhead, dumping a whole sky of water on us. We found some shelter underneath a tree branch as thick as a trunk, but it wasn’t enough to stop our faces, arms, shoulders, bags and feet getting absolutely drenched. It was only 25 minutes in, and we already looked a sorry state.

After the clouds passed…  we had a decision to make. Should we go back now, in case this happens again? It looked quite likely it would rain again at some point later. But we had been lucky with the rain a few times so far – even when rain had been forecast at 80%, we didn’t get a drop of it when we went over the Hai Van pass a few days ago. The thought of going back now irked us. What if the sun came out and we missed our only opportunity to visit a deserted island beach paradise? We looked at each other. The worst of it was probably over, right? And so… we forged on.

Bizarrely, the next obstacle we faced was a construction site, where (we presumed) some new guesthouses were being built. After asking around, we found out that some signs telling us that ‘clearwater bay not this way’ were bogus, and that we were indeed headed in the right direction. The only problem was that a massive digger had ploughed its way down the beach so many times that it had enormous, semi-permanent grooves in the sand which were impossible to cross without wading through them. Our only option was to walk further out towards the sea, and run across the sand in between waves. I thought I had timed it perfectly, until I put my feet in a trench that was a lot deeper than it looked, and felt a whole litre of water pouring into my hiking boots. Three days later, and my boots still haven’t dried out.

So, up to now, you’ve probably been thinking why on earth I chose to wear hiking boots when I could have walked through the shallow sea. Fair enough. But then we arrived at the edge of the beach, which gave way to impassable coastal rocks. Here, we had no choice but to use a rope to pull ourselves up from the beach onto a narrow entrance into the jungle. After a bit of flustered scrambling, we looked around for the path that would cut off the tip of the island – apparently one had been cut here. But all we could see were a load of slimy rocks, dense foliage and tangled tree roots. Then we squinted a bit harder, and realised that the rocks and tree roots were the path. As it wound its way up the shallow end of the mountain, we had to stop twice to figure out which way the path actually went, since it looked so similar to well… the rest of the jungle.

On the way down the other side of the mountain, it started to rain again, and we quickened our pace as we realised we were about to get caught in another downpour. Thankfully the path was much wider, probably thanks to another enormous digger we saw along the way. Despite the weather, it was hard at work raking huge trenches in the ground perpendicular to the path, and we had to literally jump across the digger’s wide tracks to get across (either that, or get our shoes filled with sludge).

So, after an hour and a half of being beaten by the weather, thinking we were lost, and huffing and puffing far more than we should have been, we saw the pier. And next to it, the beach.

I breathed a great sigh of vindicated relief. The rumours of (almost) unspoiled beauty turned out to be true. It was a beautiful sight.

And then, as if on cue, the heavens opened once again, and instead of running into the sea, we ran straight down the pier into the safety of a little hut on stilts.

The next hour and a half weren’t spent sunbathing on the beach, or listening to music, or even reading our kindles. As rain was blown sideways into the unwalled hut where we had taken shelter, we moved around to dodge it, snatching moments to eat our pringles and butter biscuits. The sea turned grey-black as a mammoth black cloud rolled overhead, hammering the corrugated iron roof.

The only silver lining was that in a ten-minute break without rain, I managed to take the only photo of the day that didn’t require me to wipe water off my phone screen before and after.

I used the remaining time to wring out my socks, give up on putting my soaked tshirt back on, and settle for putting my raincoat straight over my rain covered torso. At this point my towel was so damp I wondered if it was making me more wet when I rubbed myself with it. Alice sat down and put her towel over her head like a pink-clad nun.

By around 4pm, we were cold, dejected and miserable to the point that I think we actually became slightly delirious, and started finding it all quite funny. But as time ticked away, we knew that the failing light was going to leave us stranded on the pier overnight if we didn’t leave soon. And so we left behind our desolate, beautiful beach having never laid down on it.

The journey back involved all of the same obstacles, but this time, the rain was heavier, the descent was slippier and the beach trenches were wider and deeper. Alice cut her leg on a spiny branch, which we washed with stinging seawater. My boots got filled with water again. We were heavy footed and tired.

But we did at least manage to get a few selfies on the bridge. I’m not sure why we look so happy in these photos, because we absolutely weren’t. It must be all the smiling practice that comes with taking around 200+ photos per day so far.

In the end, we didn’t have the idyllic relaxation and reset time we wanted. We didn’t get to take stunning beach photos, bury eachother in the sand or learn how to snorkel. But on reflection, we did get something else.

According to the TV show Rick & Morty, an adventure is something that you can get so wrong that you might die. I’m not sure we were close to dying at any point, but we were very much on the verge of getting lost, stranded or catching hypothermia. Hopefully that qualifies the journey as a real adventure. It certainly felt like one.

And thankfully, our trip to Koh Rong Samloem didn’t end there. Two days later, the angry rainclouds disappated. Under a blue sky, we took a boat trip to Saracen Bay, and walked an easy 1.5km to Lazy Beach down a wide, shady, sandy road. And we got exactly what we wanted.