A Magic Island of Deadly Vipers & Over-Proof Absinthe

“We’ve had a few issues with Malaysian Vipers, so make sure to look where you step. If you get bitten, you have two hours to get to the anti-venom. But don’t worry! We can make the boat ride in just under an hour. Oh … and there’s an absinthe distillery if you take that jungle path for about 45 minutes through the trees.”

Welcome to Koh Ta Kiev.

Not what I expected to hear first thing when I stepped off the boat at The Last Point – a new, rough-and-tumble beach resort on a deserted spit of land off the coast of Sihanoukville, Cambodia.

Ok, I figured there would be snakes. But I didn’t think there would be some species that could kill you in two hours time and an absinthe distillery – which actually could kill you in 45 seconds, considering it’s located 20-feet up in a tree house. You get drunk in there, you still have to come back down via a bamboo ladder.

More like … Welcome to Try Not to Die Island.

The Last Point was opened three months ago by some good buddies of mine. They’ve been living in Sihanoukville for a while now, and I’m gonna venture there might have been some pot involved when they decided to play Real-Life-Treasure-Island. But God Bless ’em, cause they went through with it, leased a stretch of white sand and threw up some bungalows. They added hammocks, a stone oven for pizzas and, naturally, created a giant, open bar area filled with booze and beer. Because … while they can go without Internet or running water, these friends are not the types who can go long without booze and beer.

The accommodations are fun bungalows on stilts, with comfy beds and outdoor lounge couches on little porches. These will set you back $20 per night. Or you can stay in a dorm bed in a room without walls for a mere $5. The toilets are a subject of much entertainment, and the mosquito nets above your sleeping quarters are a real necessity.

My friends are playing pirate out in this jungle, and I love it for them. I loved it for me for approximately 2 days. After that, I started to get dreadlocks, and I didn’t like my odds of getting irreparably damaged by something poisonous.

However, for those two days … it was an incredible moment to cut myself off, forget the Internet, all the business of modern life and just enjoy sunsets, cold beers and swimming in incredibly blue, perfect-temperature water.

Paradise can get pretty damn intimidating once the sun sets, though. That first night, I used my iPhone flashlight to navigate the path from the bar to my bungalow. There were no vipers, but there was a spider the size of my fist crawling on the floor. I tried to kill it with a water bottle. I did not succeed and this furry Grim Reaper shot through a crack in the floor. I laid down, covered my entire body in DEET-excessive bug spray and popped 10mg of valium. If one must sleep in a den teeming with arachnids … well … one should be heavily sedated.

Into the jungle, team! Let’s go!

I awoke at the crack of sweaty, light-saber-level dawn, happy to be alive after my spider encounter. We had an excellent breakfast (they’ve got freshly baked bread here!) and then tromped through the jungle to island’s interior. There you will find the Syn Absinthe Distillery. It is owned and operated by a Portland ex-pat named Johann, who sadly wasn’t around during my visit.

The brick, homemade still is flanked by thatched walls, and it rises up through the center of a platform tree house. This place is way more dangerous during the 10-day distilling cycle than the vipers could ever be. If this puppy blows, it’s going to be a fiery, anise-scented hell storm.

“It gets quite toasty up here when we are distilling,” Kara chirped merrily, before turning to pour out glasses of over-proof, green liquid for 3 Slovakians who’d climbed the ladder to join us.

Kara is from Ohio and somehow now works here for free. In exchange, she gets to drink absinthe all day and sleeps in the tree with four other employees.

ALERT: Kara is clearly winning this game of Real Life Treasure Island.

As for Syn Absinthe, you’ll have to head to this island or the neighboring ones or Sihanoukville if you want to try some. They only sell it bars in this region for now, and as Kara informed me, Johann moved his distilling practice here from Portland because there are no limits on the amount of Wormwood you can use in Cambodia.

Well … there are a lot of unlimited things that aren’t better in life (Hello, Olive Garden’s Endless Salad & Breadsticks), and that proves true here, too. The Green label and Red label were delicious. The Black label? Not so much. It was off balance. And no wonder at 85% a.b.v., with 120PPM of Thujone.

Before we made our way down, Kara called out, “Does anyone have any open cuts or scraps they want doctored?” She was wielding a squirt bottle filled with high-octane absinthe. I displayed my calf and pointed to a cut. The next morning, after three strong spritzes, the cut definitely looked better.

Was it the absinthe? I cannot say for sure. But given that Koh Ta Kiev is such a magical little place (and I’m still riding a natural high of not being eaten by vipers) … I’m gonna go with a “yes.”