A three island tour: from paradise to hell

Picture 1: Beautiful Bamboo Island
Picture 2: The boat sunk
Picture 3: Wrapped up in the dog's blanket

In Laos, we heard from a traveling couple about a wonderful, deserted oasis: bamboo island. Just off the coast of Sihanoukville, Cambodia, the island is only accessible by private transport and is empty of tourists and hawkers. A tour promised to take us to three islands, with bamboo island as the middle stop. The boat driver guaranteed that we could spend the night in the small bungalows on the island and we could catch another boat coming home the next day. We had found a way to paradise.

Bamboo island was truly magnificent. After the tourist boats left, only one other Westerner, a German woman, was on the entire island. We spent the afternoon lounging in our hammock, reading and enjoying the sun. The beach lies on a peninsula providing a 220 degree view of ocean with nothing but a smattering of fishing boats. After having my camera stolen on the mainland, the isolation was bliss.

That night, our fortune changed. Apparently the island also serves as the karaoke hub for fisherman. We counted 31 fishing boats in the harbor and all of their owners must have been practicing for Cambodian Idol. Music and off-key shouting marred the starlight until the early hours of the morning. The rains began and our thatch roof leaked like a sieve, filling the bungalow and Carmen's bed with water. Despite the rain, we sweat in the bungalow and had to open the windows and the door to get a breeze. Fearing drunken fishermen looking for an audience, I stacked tables and chairs in front of the open door to provide a booby-trap for trespassers. Water, so-called music and no security made for a fitful night of sleep.

The next morning, we were VERY ready to leave. Paradise was great, but only in small doses. We were pleased when the usual tourist boats arrived at 11 am and a driver, Noi, told us that he was our ride home. The rains were unfortunately continuing, which would make for a cold ride home, but several of the boats left anyways. Noi told us that we would wait for the rains to halt before moving on. Two hours after our schedule departure, one of the other passengers told us that we were going to have to spend the night on the island. I approached Noi determined to convince him to take us home. He faced my rage with six different excuses and refused to budge. I was convinced he was getting a kick-back from the hotel for forcing 7 guests to stay in their lodging and eat their food. I was angry but had no way off the island.

When Carmen's face became teary when I told her the news, I decided to try one more thing: bribe the local fisherman to take us to mainland. The first two sailors shook their heads and grinned as I gestured frantically, yelling in an incomprehensible language in the pouring rain. The third simply offered me a shot of whiskey as he swayed to the music with blood-shot eyes. A fourth pushed the alcohol on me more. As I sipped the fire water, strangely reminiscent of gasoline, I knew I was not leaving the island.

At 6 am, the time designated for us to leave, I was the only human moving. I awoke the driver from a drunken slumber. "Weather still too bad". Though the drizzle was not thick, I too was grateful to go back to bed.

At 9 am, we finally boarded the boat. The cold rain pelted us as we sat on the floor of the barren, uncovered boat. We had four life jackets for 8 people. When Noi put one on, I looked him in the face with a controlled anger and told he to give me his life jacket. The other passengers had complained that the boat came near capsizing on the trip to the island and I was not going to be floating in the ocean without a life jacket because my guide stayed on the island for a kick-back. He complied. Twenty minutes into the ride, Noi pulled out a huge plastic tarp and covered us. Though we were thankful to escape the hail-like rain, we were already soaked and his forgetting our shelter just made us more bitter.

The ride to land was hellish and disempowering. Thirty minutes into the ride, Noi stopped the boat. "Waves too big". He was afraid his small fishing boat would capsize in the storm. Another tourist handed him a cell phone to call for a larger boat. He made a 20 second call and told us, "Bigger boat coming". We later found out he was lying: no boat was coming. Huddled inside the tarp, I felt utterly helpless. I could do nothing to get us off the boat and on hard land. In an act of desperation, I stood up, waving my life jacket at a passing ferry. The driver must have laughed and kept driving. After waiting another 30 minutes, Noi decided to make a run for it. While I don't think we were close to capsizing, Carmen and I did drawl up a capsize plan and I stayed out of the tarp to watch the waves twirl our boat about.

When we finally approached the mainland, Noi took our boat too close to shore and we were caught in the braking waves. He dropped the anchor in desperation, which only locked our boat in crashing water. For a few seconds, I truly feared for my life. I looked back and shouted, "What now!?" Then came the response you never want to hear from a boat driver: "Swim!". He was the first one into the water. With digital cameras, passports and all our money wrapped in a plastic bag, I lunged into the water, desperately maintaining my arm above the waves. I was prepared to swim to shore with one arm. Fortunately, the water was only about 6 feet deep and I could stand with the ebb of the tide. I grabbed Carmen and we ran to shore. As we fought the undertow pulling us further out, I realized that I couldn't feel my hands or toes; hypothermia had set in.

The beach was deserted except for a small house which had once also been a restaurant. Behind a large beer sign, I found shelter from the wind. I grabbed two blankets from the ground that had clearly been used for dog beds and wrapped Carmen and myself tightly. My teeth were chattering--Carmen's body warmth felt so good. I've never been happier to smell like a dog.

The boat sunk. Locked in the waves, buoyancy was overpowered by weight. The picture at the top of this page shows the last of the boat sticking out of the water. Noi almost cried. His boss would make him work off the cost.

We hiked to a hotel a ways down the beach so that the tour company could pick us up. I was so ready to get back to civilization that I refused to wait for the car and hired two motorbikes to take us to town. I found out later that no car ever came for the other tourists. After waiting an hour, they took hired a bike. Talk about insult to injury.

What went wrong? Lots of things. Apparently Noi is not a boat driver at all; he is a waiter at the local restaurant. Noi had become good friends with some of the guests and decided that he would lead their journey to the island. Unfortunately, Noi is also a heavy drinker. The other tourists suspected that Noi refused to leave the island when the weather was good because he was drunk and wished to drink more with the local fisherman. I still think he was getting a kick back from the hotel.

While I don't believe in Karma per se, it seems that Noi certainly received a large dose of it. At first I felt really bad that he would have to pay for the boat that he had wrecked but then I remembered that he could have sailed home just fine had he left when the other boats did.

Needless to say, it will be years before Carmen and I ever take another island tour. We should have learned from Gilligan.