Koh Rong

Koh Rong was, for most of its history, a place people fished from rather than lived on in numbers. Its hills were forested and largely uncleared, and small Khmer fishing settlements sat in the sheltered bays, trading with the mainland coast at Kampong Som. The island lay at the edge of the sea route between the Gulf of Thailand ports, and its waters were worked by fishing boats from both shores.

The 20th century mostly passed it by. After independence, the mainland port at Sihanoukville was built up from the mid-1950s and the islands off it remained quiet. The war years and the Khmer Rouge period left the coast isolated, and the archipelago stayed on the margins; in May 1975, fighting between American forces and Khmer Rouge troops took place on Koh Tang, further out in the same waters, after the seizure of the cargo ship Mayaguez. Fishing and a little charcoal-burning remained the island economy for decades afterwards.

Tourism arrived late and quickly. In the late 2000s a few bungalow places opened behind the beach at Koh Touch, reached by slow fishing boats, and word spread among backpackers of an island with electricity for only a few hours a day. Faster ferries, better power and a large development concession followed, and through the 2010s the village grew into a strip of guesthouses and bars while resorts appeared on the outlying bays. A road network begun in 2020, resort building and plans for an international airport have since changed parts of the coast, although the interior remains unpopulated forest.

Two quite different ways of life share the island. The villages — Koh Touch, Sok San, Prek Svay, Daem Thkov — are Khmer fishing communities, with wooden houses on stilts over the water, boats drawn up on the sand, drying racks of squid and fish, a pagoda and a school. Their year follows the sea and the Buddhist calendar, with Khmer New Year in April and Pchum Ben in autumn as the fixed points, and many households have relatives working on the mainland.

The other life is the visitor economy that grew on top of it: bungalow owners, dive instructors, bartenders, boat drivers and a shifting foreign population, concentrated in the main village and on a few beaches. Koh Touch has a reputation for late nights and beach parties, while the quieter bays have become the opposite kind of destination. Cambodian weekend visitors from Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh form a third group, arriving in family parties for seafood and a swim.

Manners are those of provincial Cambodia rather than of a resort: modest dress off the beach, shoes removed indoors, quiet voices, and respect for the pagoda and for elders. Villagers are used to visitors but not indifferent to them, and asking before photographing people, houses or boats is the plain courtesy. The island's environment is a live local issue, and rubbish, sewage and reef damage are things residents raise themselves.

The island's permanent population is small — on the order of a few thousand people spread across several villages — and rises and falls with the season as workers arrive for the dry months and leave when the monsoon closes businesses. Koh Touch is the main settlement; Sok San, Prek Svay and Daem Thkov are fishing villages on other coasts, connected to each other by boat more reliably than by track.

Fishing is still the base of the local economy: crab traps, squid boats and nets worked at night, with the catch sold to island restaurants and shipped to the mainland. Tourism now employs many islanders directly, in guesthouses, boats, bars and construction, and land values have risen sharply as development has spread. Almost everything else — fuel, bottled water, building materials, much of the food — arrives by boat, which sets prices and shapes the day.

Life runs to the ferry timetable and the generator. Mornings are for fishing, deliveries and cleaning; the middle of the day is hot and slow; the evening belongs to the beach restaurants and, in the main village, to the bars. Power supply, fresh water and waste disposal remain everyday problems, phone signal is uneven away from the east coast, and the wet season empties the island of both visitors and much of its workforce.

Seafood is the point. Squid, prawns, blue crab, snapper and mackerel are landed by island boats and cooked simply — grilled over charcoal with salt, or stir-fried with garlic, chilli and green Kampot pepper from the mainland coast nearby. Whole fish barbecued on the beach with a lime, pepper and salt dipping sauce, tuk meric, is the standard island dinner, and crab comes the way it does in Kep, fried with fresh peppercorns still on the stem.

The Khmer staples follow the mainland. Amok trey, fish steamed with coconut milk, lemongrass and kroeung spice paste in a banana-leaf cup, appears on most menus; so do beef lok lak with its pepper-and-lime sauce, sour soups, and fried rice and noodles. Breakfast in the villages is kuy teav, rice-noodle soup with pork, or rice with grilled pork, and the island's small shops sell baguettes, a lasting French habit, alongside instant coffee and iced tea.

Because supplies come by boat, menus in the main village are broader than the island's own produce — pizzas, burgers and banana pancakes for the backpacker trade — while village kitchens keep to what was caught that morning. Fresh coconuts, sugar-cane juice and fruit shakes are the daytime drinks; iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk is the Cambodian one. Alcohol is cheap and Cambodian beer is the standard order at the beach bars.