Paradise defined, then destroyed...

About 15 miles west of Sihanoukville lies a small cluster of islands. The biggest of them, Kaoh Rong, is the typical postcard-quality destination, covered with a rainforest that pushes its way to white sand beaches with palm trees and turquoise waters. There is only a handful of bungalows situated next to 4 fishing villages and that's it, not bad for an island the size of Hong Kong. One of the dive shops-conveniently called “The Dive Shop”- has built a school and some of its dive instructors teach english there, a pretty nice gesture if you ask me. There is an overwhelmingly large amount of dogs, most of them friendly and well fed and I was later told that Khmers do eat them, with a preference for the black ones since they supposedly bring luck.hmm...Anyways, apart from the occasional water buffalo passing by there is not much else happening during the day, it's swimming, snorkeling, reading, maybe walking a bit, visit the neighboring beaches, come back, eat, rest(!), swim some more and wait for the night to come and with it some alcohol and the inevitable heated discussions about the future of humanity.

Unfortunately the one thing you can't stop is progress, and in this particular island it's coming in the form of a luxury resort that will cover most of it, together with an airport, casino, golf, hell, they might even make a ski resort while they are at it. So visit the place while you can, it won't be there for long, not in its current form anyway.