20 Jan, Sihanoukville - Koh Thmei island

Starting the day early as usual we head to the marketplace where minibuses, tuk-tuks and taxis are waiting for their customers. There is a 30 km ride ahead of us to get to Koh Kchang fishing village where the boat deaparts to Koh Thmei island, the scene of our next volunteering session. We try to get prepared for the negotiaton and actually it goes quite smoothly. We are the first customers to book seats in a minibus for USD 5 (2 people), departing one hour later. In the meantime we have some breakfast. When we walk back to our bus, it has been already packed with locals and their goods so much that it would all fit comfortably into three buses. The driver tries to reorganize the passengers and their luggage, making children sit on the packets in the trunk. There is still no chance for us to have even a tiny place to get on. Of course taxi drivers keep coming to offer their cars for USD 20. Finally our bus driver arranges us a taxi for USD 10. It turns out that it is a shared taxi. After picking up two passengers next to the driver and two in the back amongst the packets (with the back door open) we invite one of them to share the backseats. Anyway, this set-up is still so much more comfortable than the minibus, and cheaper than a private taxi would have been.

 

The boat trip takes about an hour to Koh Thmei island, Reap National Park, among lush mangroves with a view to other islands of Cambodia and even to not-so-far Vietnam.