14 to 17 March – Sihanoukville

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I make the short trip to Sihanoukville and check into the very pleasant Grand Sihanouk Hotel, just around the corner from the bus stop. Before doing anything around town, I am anxious to see where Ellen and Alex have landed, particularly after the harried separation the previous day. I walk around to a couple of the hostel type places close to the bus stop but can’t find their names in the registers. Looking around at the number of little hostels and cheap hotels, I realise it’s going to be impossible to track them down. So instead I post a couple of emails letting them know where I am with a plan to meet up in 2 or 3 days for the move across Cambodia to Siem Reap. I get no responses from either of them so I guess, rightly as it turns out, that they are out on one of the many offshore islands enjoying themselves.

Sihanoukville turns out to be a pleasant surprise. I’d read plenty about the seedy side of town, a place where expats and foreign tourists can find all their temptations answered, and you can see that if you seek it out. But there was more. For a start it was reasonably developed and the beachside areas were also quite clean, a marked contrast to many towns in the country. And the tourists were not just foreigners, a fair proportion of the beachside restaurants and nightlife are there for Cambodia tourists, many from the capital Phnom Penh. The area I was in, Occheteal and Otres Beach are in the south of the town. It’s a collection of friendly bars and restaurants set along a strip of beach about a kilometre or so in length. You can walk along this strip and eat at the places or just take some barbequed squid or pepper crab from one of the wandering vendor ladies. Or get your nails clipped, legs waxed or whatever. Set back from the beach strip is a string of roadside barbeque restaurants, many run by expats, and accommodation of various styles and standards. The whole place makes you think of Bali maybe twenty or thirty years. I hear that over in the north side of town, it’s a bit more grim and seedy, so I’m quite happy to be where I am. I do the usual recky around town and in the evening I chat with Mike, an Englishman who landed in Snooky 5 weeks ago. He bought himself one of those roadside barbeque restaurants, Domino’s, a week ago for 5000 EURO and was busying himself getting it revamped. It seats about 40 people, if it ever gets full and sells a main course for about $5. He tells there are little obstacles to a foreigner buying a place here apart from having the cash, and much easier than in neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam. After a couple of days in the place I can see that there is a proliferation of little bars, cafes and restaurants fronted by westerners, and their young local girlfriends. So many in fact that I can’t see how they can make any real money out of the ventures, but I suppose they can’t be just doing for the money. Whilst at Domino’s, I see the first of many Russians I will run into. He is huge and Mike tells me he’s now a regular. He grunts a lot and works his way through 3 main course meals before he and his partner struggle onto a tuk tuk to take them away.

The next day I take a day cruise out to Koh Rong Saloum island. The cruise is run by a couple of mad Germans and they do a great job of entertaining the compliment of tourists aboard. There are about 25 of us from all over – Swiss, French, Brits, Chinese, a Dane and a group of young Russian kids who spend most of the trip lighting up joints. I team up with the Dane – he turns out to be one of those interesting folk you meet travelling. A former maritime chef who has spent time cooking in various merchant navies as well as resorts across the world, he’s now a social worker in Denmark travelling overseas each year including to ashrams in India. Anyway the day is pleasant – some snorkelling followed by some beach time on the island as well as a walk through a mangrove stream the colour and smell you would not believe. We finish the trip back to shore with drinking games – skulling beer through a snorkel and mask.

In the evening I do take away pizza back in the hotel room. Eating out alone as a male, you get nothing but stares. Not like in Vietnam where its easy to strike up a chat with someone, here a solo male is viewed with some suspicion.

The next day I take a long bike ride to the very extremity of Otres Beach in the south. It’s a nice clean beach which I am very happy to find does exist on the mainland. I return and find Ellen and Alex at my hotel. They’ve had a great time offshore bunking on an island close to where I went out to. They have plenty of stories, some they share and some they won’t.

On the last day in Sihanoukville, Alex goes off early in a tuk tuk and does his own explore of the place. Ellen and I head to the town centre to explore the old market. It’s a grubby town back here, a world away from the neat beachside. But the market is very interesting and Ellen treats herself to a hair wash - $2 for 30 minutes of luxury.

In the evening we board the night bus to Siem Reap. I booked the Virak Buntham service – at $18 it’s the most expensive one. Thinking that this would provide a guarantee of comfort, it turns out to be a complete sham. It was the most miserable bus experience of our time in Asia. The ride to Siem Reap took ten hours on a coach that was configured with sleeping compartments with the mat being thick plastic covered foam. Unlike the previous sleeping bus we’d been on, each sleeping compartment was framed by a steel cage, each one independent of each other. The result was that as we were propelled down Highway 2, each sleeping compartment would grate against the next one. Each pothole that we hit would send a shudder through the bed and produce a jangle of grating screeches. It was like a very loud cutlery orchestra. To make things worse, poor Ellen got sick about 30 minutes before boarding. We were caught as we had to make the trip and meet Gina in Siem Reap the next day. So she endured the trip, being sick a couple of times, and making the most of the ten minute stop in Phnom Penh at midnight. We arrived in Siem Reap at 6am the next morning absolutely shattered.

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Photos

Grand Sihanouk Hotel
Thirty dollars a night gets you this.

Bridge to Snake Island, Sihanoukville
Reputedly built by a russian to service his privately run casino.