The beauty and mystique of a lush, virgin island captures the imagination of many who step foot in Southeast Asia. Tourists and expatriates alike fantasise of finding “their” own little island, unspoilt by development or, even worse, the dreaded fellow travellers.
For better or worse, untouched islands are usually kept off the tourist maps, but just off the coast of Kep is the well-known, yet sparsely visited Rabbit Island (Koh Tonsay) where people can indulge in their castaway fantasies far away from the mad rush of Phnom Penh.
Tropical Paradise
Rabbit Island, approximately 20 minutes by boat from Kep, is about as minimalist as one can get without going insane. There are about a half-dozen guest houses on the island, each with a handful of bamboo bungalows adjacent to the beach. Forget television, Internet, or even flush toilets. Showers are done the old-fashioned way by pouring a bucket of water over your head, and electricity is only turned on for a few hours in the early evening (fortunately, there’s also plenty of Bacardi and Pastis to go around).
What Rabbit Island lacks in infrastructure is made up by its natural beauty and charming isolation from the outside world. Most of the island is still covered in trees, and although treks around the hills are possible, most visitors instead opt to hang out on the beach all day.
This isn’t Thailand’s Koh Phi Phi or the Bahamas’ Paradise Island with massive dunes of pearly white sand and pools of sky-blue water. Instead, the beach is small, the water slightly muddled by the sand, and visitors must share the beach with wandering cows and chickens. What the island lacks in that aesthetic (and often synthetic) glory of other islands, however, is made up for with its natural cleanliness- you’re far more likely step into a pile of cow dung on the beach than onto a broken beer bottle.
The island goes to bed early, with electric generators keeping the power on from around 6 p.m. to 11. The best place to go after dark is the Rabbit Hut Bungalows in the centre of the beach, where the outgoing owner mingles with guests in near-fluent English at the island’s only real bar. If you ask nicely, he’ll even play your favourite tunes from your iPod.
All the guesthouses have a near identical menu offering the usual fried rice and noodles, as well as squid, crab, and other fish. Visitors report mixed experiences with the seafood- while many find it fresh and appetising, others report mouthfuls of guts and bile from improperly cleaned fish. Lovers of seafood may be better off getting their fix from the Crab Market at nearby Kep, then taking it to the island to grill on the beach.
Paradise Lost?
The future of Rabbit Island is unclear, with rumours abound of investors looking to convert the island into the Cambodian equivalent of Macau. One bungalow owner, who asked to remain anonymous, said he’s worried about the island’s future. “We’re worried about the investors, because we’ll have to move then. They’ll pay compensation, but not enough.” He said that the island’s unique flavour will be spoilt by excessive development, causing the current tide of tourists to go elsewhere. “Almost everyone who visits Rabbit Island stays longer than they planned, and they wish to see the same thing when they come back on their next holiday. Both the locals and the tourists want to see the same thing at Rabbit Island forever.”
In the meantime, Rabbit Island remains a paradise for those looking to frolic in the gentle waves or cosy up on beach chairs reading books in relative isolation. Sunsets are impressive on clear evenings as the sun sets over the Vietnamese islands on the horizon, and at night, the sea fills with bioluminescent plankton that illuminate in the waves.
To get to Rabbit Island, take the bus from Phnom Penh to Kep, and work your way to the dock to hitch a ride on a local boat. Prices vary depending on the number of passengers, but the typical fare is around five dollars. Bungalows cost between five and seven dollars, with meals costing between 6,000 and 20,000 riel. Minor luxuries, such as cigarettes and crisps, are also available. Prices are slightly inflated given the quality of service (you may find that a bowl of fried rice takes over 30 minutes to prepare), but the primary highlights of the island are free, and there are no motodops to haggle with or markets to be tempted by. Day-trips are possible from Kep, but fans of the island would recommend staying at least one night. If simple living on a sparsely-populated jungle island sounds like your cup of tea, Rabbit Island may be right up your alley.
Bennett Murray - Bennett Murray wrote for his first publication in 2006, and has been writing ever since. Murray most recently worked for the Phnom Penh ...
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