Bliss Interrupted

Our favorite spot

No electricity, no other soul in sight, no worries in the world - just the sound of waves softly crashing into the shores of the beautiful and deserted Sonaya beach on Cambodia's Koh Rong island. We had found our Shangri-la.

Arriving at this paradise of an Island on a long tail boat

Well, that was until the pristine sound of paradise was rudely interrupted by the sputtering of a hovering helicopter and loud ATVs zooming by. We both bolted up from our beach chairs in confusion. Just the previous day, Jan had been peeved by the mere sight of other humans who weren't staying on the beach but had the nerve to show up in their kayaks. And now this?!

That's the problem with finding paradise; others might find it too.

"They are part of the film crew for the TV show Survivor," the owner of Pura Vita resort told us. Now we were excited. Yemi used to be a fan of that show and Jan was excited about the prospect of photo ops with these quasi celebrities. We could already picture the title of the blog: WE WERE ON SURVIVOR!

They shot an ATV "race" scene repeatedly over the next eight hours, reenacting the competition dozens of times until it could be filmed from all angles. "It's complete B.S.....all fake," our resort owner complained about the show's authenticity. She explained that this wasn't the first time the Survivor franchise had shown up for a few days to shoot scenes on her beach.  Just a few months prior they also filmed a few scripted scenes here.

At the end of the day we saw the cast walking down the beach. We scanned their faces as they approached us looking for Jeff Probst or maybe even Russell Hantz, but to no avail. As they walked by us we asked which show they were filming, pretending not to know.

"Survivor Bulgaria," the guy closest to us answered proudly.

Survivor Bulgaria?!?

We aren't sure which is more surprising: the fact that Survivor is clearly staged, or the fact that Bulgaria has their own version of the show!

Survivor Bulgaria cast members