“A real Cambodian rural experience”

We only stayed here for one night en route to Siem Reap but we loved it! The guesthouse is located on a 1km wide, 11km long island in the middle of the Mekong, opposite the town of Kratie. I think it's the only guesthouse on the island, with the exception of a few homestays. We were greeted in Kratie town by Sam, (the manager of Sala Koh Trong I think) who took us in a private small boat across the river to the island. It was the height of the dry season and the river was low, meaning that our boat pulled up on a large sand bank where we were collected by two moto drivers who piled our rucksacks onto their motos, and with us on the back drove us over the sand bank and along the length of the island to the guesthouse. An exciting start to our stay!

As it was low season we were the only guests at the guesthouse that night. The building itself is a typical, if large, Cambodian stilt house. It's been decorated beautifully with lovely Cambodian textiles & prints mixed with mid-century modern Ercol-esque furniture. The ground floor is open, but covered, providing a large area to relax, eat, etc. There's a cute 1 yr old very friendly Doberman too! Several bedrooms are on the first floor, where there are also day beds to lounge on. These bedrooms share a bathroom. Our room was on the ground floor. It was a large room, with a large bathroom. The windows and ventilation openings were well sealed with mosquito screens, and the bed too had a good mosquito net. This is a necessity as the island has lots of bugs!

At the time we stayed the island had a limited power supply - electricty was only available between 6pm-2am, meaning that the fans in the rooms went off at 2am and it did get a bit hot. No internet either, but given you'e on an island this isn't surprising. Take a torch!

We hired bikes and rode round the island, which I can highly recommend - it was a lot of fun. Sadly we didn't have enough time to visit the Vietnamese village, but I wish we had.

The food (we at dinner and breakfast there) was great. I had a really interesting dish of tomatoes stuffed with pork and my boyfriend had a very tasty vegetarian dish. They have a good wine selection too. Breakfast was equally nice.

Sam, the manager, was fanastic. Very friendly & helpful, and really made us feel welcomed and cared for.

The owners are currently developing the site next to the homestay. It will add a number of freestanding stilt house rooms, I think about 10 rooms, and a swimming pool. I think it will have more of a hotel feel, but given how sensitively they've created the homestay I'm sure it'll be good. The plan is to train and employ local people on the island.

So final words. We loved it. It felt like a real retreat - it's so peaceful and friendly. If you were staying longer I'm not sure whether you could use it as a base to visit other places as you'd need to get a moto and boat ride to leave and return to the island every day. However it was a great experience and I'd highly recommend it for really relaxing and seeing a really interesting side of Cambodian rural life.
Their website is http://www.kohtrong.com/index.php?lng=en