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Our plan was not to do any more blogs for a while as we are re-visiting places which we have already been to and we thought it would be boring for all concerned. However, after visiting Sihanoukville exactly one year after
our last visit we decided we needed to write a new blog to highlight some changes which have occurred in Cambodia in general over the last year. There are therefore no pictures of Sihanoukville, probably a good job as the beach and water were a mess with glass bottles, plastic bags and polystyrene cartons!
After spending a few nights in Phnom Pehn we headed down south to Sihanoukville, Cambodia's 'premier' (read only) beach resort. The bus journey wasn't great...instead of opting for the $6 tourist bus with food, toilet and tour guide we went on the Capitol bus company's bus for $4. It was a hot journey, the air con didn't work very well so we were sweating like pigs for the entire 5 hour journey and we had to turn our mp3 player up very loud to drown out the Khmer karaoke and strange film which was played at full blast.
With sore ears and wet backsides from sweating so much we arrived into downtown Sihanoukville. We were dreading the expected showdown with the moto drivers on arrival, surprisingly though we got the price we wanted without even arguing, a good start we thought. Arriving at Serendipity beach we were pleased to see that there was a little more development there in the shape of new guesthouses, shops and restaurants. Although some of the older guesthouses like Monkey Republic had the cheek to be charging $7 for a fan room with a mattress on the floor and cold water when we got a room in a guesthouse near the Golden Lions for $10 with air con, proper bed, cable tv, an hour of free internet a day and hot water.
The beach area of Serendipity had expanded since last year with more bars with comfy seats on the beach but with less drinks offers for customers. On average bars were charging 75c - $1 for a draft beer, $1.50 - 2 for spirit mixers and $2 - 2.5 for cocktails. There were only 2 bars on the beach doing 24 hour happy hours with beer for 50c, last year it was nearly every bar with these prices. We also first encountered the famous scamming of Cambodia here on Serendipity beach. We have decided to name and shame bars here as we were that disgusted with them overcharging and trying to rip tourists off!
We settled into a nice routine in Sihanoukville, sleeping in until midday, having a lazy breakfast/lunch, lounging on the beach for a few hours then returning to the room to get ready for our evening meal and drinks on the beach. It's a tough life but someone's got to do it! The only thing that spoiled the routine was the constant, unchanging arguments about the bills we were brought.
There was only one place (it would have been two, but this is explained later!) which did not try and rip us off on Serendipity beach, this was Serendip bar, all the bills we got here were right and the barracuda barbeque for $4 was amazing. Most nights we went to Dolphin bar to have a chicken curry and a couple of vodkas in the happy hour. Every time the bill was wrong by $4-9 - considering our bill came to $9, a $9 overcharge is huge...this bar is also owned by British guys, every time we complained about the bill (usually in a very loud voice) they would disappear and let us carry on arguing with the Khmer staff who spoke hardly any English. To be honest these guys were arseholes, only interested in shagging women and getting pissed but they never stuck around long enough for us to tell them what we thought of their bar (Donna was dying to let rip but didn't get the chance!). Another bar we went to with a 24 hours happy hour was called Full Moon bar and it had an owner who was just plain creepy. He was also notorious for overcharging and getting your order wrong, several other people made these comments too...for example we ordered a bottle of water and a fruit salad. Somehow we ended up with a bottle of water, fruit salad and 2 beers...of course we sent the beers back because we didn't order them. We also went in there one night and ordered 2 vodkas at $1 per vodka, the bill somehow came to $6!
We happened across another bar called Coco beach...it had recently been taken over by 2 British guys. We went in a couple of times as they had 50c draft beer 24 hours until one night they had suddenly changed the happy hour (the sign outside still read 24 hour happy hour) to end at 10pm and the beers were now $1. It's the deception that annoyed us more than the price change. Now reading this you might not think that 50c is neither here nor there. BUT when you have a budget each day like most travellers do that you need to stick to, bars overcharging by double soon takes your budget to the limit. It was so annoying every time we went somewhere for food or drinks, we had to keep a mental note of what we had to make sure the bill was right. It wasn't just us either, every other traveller we spoke to said the same thing, some people were even taking pens and pads out with them to keep track of what they had ordered. All the travellers we spoke to in Serendipity were all sick and tired of the bars and restaurants trying to rip tourists off.
Our favourite place for breakfast was Seahorse restaurant as it did a great cheese and tomato omelette and baguette for Neil and a huge bowl of muesli and banana for Donna. They even knocked money off the muesli as Donna didn't have the yoghurt with it. As this place was good value for breakfast, we had a look at the drinks prices...it turned out they were very, very good. $1 for a half pint glass of vodka sprite. Fab, we thought so we started to go in there regularly...all was well until our last night when we ordered 2 vodka sprites and the bill came saying they were $2 each. When we questioned it the guy that worked there and had served us EVERY DAY for 2 weeks said 'oh yes, my boss say I have to charge that now'...but the board which had all the drinks prices on still said $1 a spirit and mixer. GRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, was it so difficult to change the board or at least tell us the prices had changed since the night before?
Apart from the hassles with bills we were enjoying lazing on the beach getting healthy again, particularly because we had both been quite ill over the last couple of months (Donna with a bad staphylococcus infection and Neil with two broken ribs!).
One day we threw some stuff into one of our daysacks and decided to have a jog to the far end of the beach (yes everyone, Donna attempted - with a lot of persuasion from Neil and not very successfully - to jog!!). So arriving feeling slightly hot, we decided to jump into the water and cool off. We kick ourselves for doing this though, because as we were splashing away quite happily in the water some scumbag came along the beach and lifted our bag. Neil managed to run after this guy, picked up a huge piece of wood and almost got him but he jumped on a bike and him and his mate high tailed it out of there. Then it was time for more running because as well as some books, our mp3 player, sarongs, sunlasses and suntan lotion, our room key was in there. We had to get back to the hotel fast to make sure the thieves couldn't get into our room but we were 20 minutes away! We were lucky there wasn't anything of real value in the daysack, it was just a real inconvenience trying to research and buy replacements (with very limited internet) for Donna's parents to bring out to us when they came to visit.
This brings us to our next point about Serendipity...the number of thefts have risen dramatically. The next day we walked back along the beach to warn other people about the theft, we spoke to 7 couples/people in total that day. Each one had had something stolen, either on the beach or from their room. One couple had professional photographic equipment (he was a photographer by trade) stolen from their room while they were in it - how we don't know. Another had their bag stolen the same day as us, a little way down the beach from where we were. Another guy had his camera, laptop and running shoes stolen from his locked hotel room (the staff think that a Khmer had made a copy of the key when they stayed there previously and then went in and stole things) and his friend had the petrol from his motorbike syphoned overnight while the security guard watched! So if you are going to Cambodia, please be careful of your things...don't give these thieves the opportunity!
All in all, Cambodia, for our third visit, to this once wonderful, friendly and honest country was a real disappointment. We decided to head to Koh Chang in Thailand, a little earlier than we planned as Cambodia annoyed us so much. We booked our bus ticket and were on a big 35 seater bus...every single traveller on this bus (all but 8 seats were filled with Western travellers) was bad mouthing Cambodia, saying they would never return, calling the Khmers all names under the sun (not repeatable here!!) and that they hated Cambodia. To us, it's such a shame for a country which is so poor (we think it is the 3rd or 4th poorest country in the world). It really does need tourism, there is nothing else to keep its economy going. We first visited Cambodia in 2004 and there was just something about the country which pulled us back. We went again last year and loved it again. This year we are sorry to say we didn't have a good time and we will never be going back to Cambodia.
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Liz MacKenzie-Barrett
non-member comment
a shame
Yay. You're back. But boo. This really sucks. I loved Cambodia - and S'Ville - when I was there two years ago. I was particularly fond of the people. Sigh, all good things come to an end. Hope you and Neil have fully recovered. And I hope your next stop is more positive.