Sihanoukville beach – Cambodia

An early start and a long drive to Sihanoukville, a beach resort on the Cambodian coast. I really didn’t know what to expect from here, I had been told it is very beautiful. The road were pretty good on the way, long and straight and overtaking manoeuvres were pretty sketchy, often best not to look!

On route we stopped off at a roadside shrine site which was also home to hundreds of monkeys.

On arrival we were met with this wall of people, a few honks from the car and we were through.

The following day we went on a boat tour around a few of the local islands and had a BBQ on the beach. The weather wasn’t so great, raining a couple of times through-out the day. However the cool rain drops were a nice way to cool down in the 30+ degrees heat…

To be honest it wasn’t the best boat tour, but it was nice to see a few islands without bungalows on them yet.

Whilst we were out on a boat tour the rain really kicked in heavily, the captain at the back of the ship wasn’t bothered and just kept steering the truck engines home. These things make a hell of a racket and don’t propel the boat particularly fast! The engines seem very similar here to the ones in Thailand, I wonder if there is a specific type of engine they look for.

The main beach itself feels like of a paradise gone wrong, infiltrated by happy hours, glow paint, pizza menus and American jocks taking their gap year. The local women patrol the beach demanding to rip any hair on your body out with thread, massage your sandy back or failing that paint your nails some vile blue colour. The foot massages are actually pretty pleasant, but be careful not to refuse on vendor and accept the offer of another, I never heard the end of that one.

The nightlife is loud and goes on late, interspersed by bag snatching and shots depending on the state of the tourist. It was good fun, but I was glad not to be staying any longer.