How to Visit Koh Mok

Thai Island Perfection

Khmer New Year is the epic holiday of Spring (or Hot Season, depending on where you are). Expat friends start asking what you're doing for the holidays starting end of February. Khmer colleagues head home to the province to spend time with family (KNY is like Christmas). This year I decided to go with Koh Mok (also known as Koh Mak), the result of extensive research; ie. google, TripAdvisor, texting.

Koh Mok is a Thai island of the coast of Thailand and Cambodia. Koh Mok is a quiet, seasonally populated report island that puts some effort into conservation. It attracts clientele a step-up from scuzzy youthful backpackers (there is also a ban on power water toys such as jet-skis).

To start the adventure, we departed at 6am from Phnom Penh in a hired car. We went southwest then northwest to Koh Kong in the Cambodian border with Thailand, arriving at approximately 11:30am. After an early lunch, we crossed the border on foot and got on a mini bus to Trat. This was approximately 70 minutes driving. From Trat, we got on a little renovated covered pick-up or "tuk truck" to make the ferry. This was where the fun began.

Traveling internationally [credit: google-maps]

Thailand and Cambodia share the same New Year (in addition to International New Year and possibly both celebrating Chinese New Year). In Thailand, the holiday is marked with a three day long water war. (Cambodia had the same custom until it was banned several years ago when idiots began substituting acid.) In Thailand, children and young adults drive around in pick up trucks with 50 gallon drums of water, throwing water at every passerby; cars, motorbikes, bikes, pedestrians, and especially other kids in pick-up trucks. This is often followed by throwing flour which sticks to everything wet. People set up drums outside their homes and also throw water at those passing by. This being Southeast Asia, people are wearing jeans, t-shirts, hoodies, and other water-heavy items of clothing. Many had water guns, clearly cherished for this beloved day. Sadly, for obvious reasons, I have no photos of this these event.

On our way from Trat in our "tuk truck," we had the misfortune traversing a road lined with kids in pick-up trucks. The trucks were moving at 2 kilometers an hour so the water throwing occurred in slow-motion with shrieks of delight. There might have been 60 trucks with kids crammed in the back. Beer and other beverages were flowing from nearby carts (the owners were soaked), and a fire hydrant must have been disabled for this event as it gushed unrestrained for happy youths to refill their drums. Needless to say, we crammed our bags into the cab of the "tuk truck" and resigned to the water and flour. Surely enough 15 minutes later, we were completely soaked.

Making it to the ferry, completely soaked but with our valuables dry, we climbed aboard a ferry for Koh Mok. It was a refurbished speedboat which sat 30 people. Our trip along the gulf passing other islands took about 50 minutes, after which we were deposited on a dock and the owner of our hotel picked us up in his beat-up little Datsan for the final two or three kilometers. By 4:30pm, we finally made it to our lovely little restort.

If you are going to travel so far and for so long and get so wet, you must stay for a while.

The holiday that followed really couldn't have brought any more enjoyment than the trip out. It was unseasonably wet and rained every single day. We ate so much Thai curry. In fact, I think I had curry four days in a row because Thai curry is unquestionably the best food in the entire world (please don't argue). We watched storms roll in and storms roll back out to sea, and in between laid on rafts floating off the coast in the relatively clean water. I read three books in our five days there, which might be a new record. We also played many board games, at many of which I triumphed, thankfully.

Some holidays you want adventure and new sights, (ie. Bali, Chiang Mai). Other holidays you just want to lay still and sleep. Sometimes you need quiet time to reflect, to reassess, to find healing and forgiveness, and feel overwhelming gratitude that you have the amazing opportunity to live in such a beautiful corner of the world. And the adventure getting out was certainly part of the joy! Going back into Cambodia, the immigration people harassed us looking for bribes (common at this specific border crossing) which bookend the travel adventures. However, the time at the beach was sheer perfection.