9 Weeks Backpacking SE Asia: Part 2c - Phnom Penh, Koh Rong and Sihanoukville

Transparency: This post is being written in 2020 as we did not have a blog in 2016.  I am using stay at home time to flatten the curve of the global pandemic Covid-19 to organize photos from this trip into a post.  Memories may not be exact.

Only one night in Phnom Penh, passing through on our way south.  Fortunately, our guesthouse is just around the corner from the King's Palace and the waterfront, so a bit of sight-seeing can be squeezed in.  Three years later we have several days in Phnom Penh during one of the biggest festivals of the year and have a blast.

Around the palace

Hand-painted murals on walls

The King has numerous chairs to choose from when he rides an elephant.

The palace has a museum that includes treasures of the day, household items and clothing.

A woman sits on the grounds of the palace doing exquisite weaving with fine, brightly coloured silk thread.

Random Photos Phnom Penh

The little guy at our guest house.  He's friendlier than he looks!

Koh Rong Island

This is the only thing I remember from the drive from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, the place where we stopped for a bathroom, lunch and gas break:

The island is a forty-five-minute ferry ride from Sihanoukville.

Looking back at Sihanoukville from the ferry

Well as newbie travellers here is our first mistake that more research would have prevented.  It turns out that Koh Rong is the party island for the young backpacking crew and we end up choosing a cabin in a resort that is the party place.  Our first clue was a sign jabbed into the beach at the end of the ferry dock pointing people to the STD clinic.

Not only does the music go at top volume until 6 in the morning, but the roosters under our cabin on stilts start crowing about that time and continue into the morning.  One night in the middle of the night some very drunk guy is trying to get into our cabin, thinking it's his.  We tell him to go away but in the morning he's crashed in a chair on our deck.  

We've since heard that Ko Ta Kieve is a much quieter island with only a few rustic places to stay.  It takes a bit of planning to get on and off this island with less frequent ferry service.

The open restaurant associated with the place we are in allows smoking and cats are walking all over the bar and tables, looking for both food and attention.

We have to admit that the beach was great and the warm, clear water of Koh Rong was heaven.  We learn later that there are one or two places on the other side of the island, a jungle hike away that are more peaceful.  We stay a couple of nights as the ferry to get here was expensive, then leave sleep-deprived and disappointed in ourselves.  We figure we'll try out Sihanoukville for a few days, although we are not optimistic.

One afternoon we are sitting on the sand about 20 feet from our cabin.  Guys are working on the cabin next door with a skill saw.  The next thing we know Paul has a cut on his hand from a chunk of the blade that broke off and went winging through the air straight at him.

As we are getting on the ferry we notice that many of the young people leaving have bandages covering various body parts - the visible clumsiness of alcohol intoxication!

The interesting thing is that three years later we have booked a hostel in Kampot and later figure out that its owned by the same folks as the place we stayed on Koh Rong (it has since closed).  Some things never change: smoking is allowed in all public areas and the music is cranked from late afternoon until about 2 am.  We stay one night and move half a block to a guest house.

Random Photos of Koh Rong

Sihanoukville & Otres Beach

Although we were not enthralled with Sihanoukville in 2016, we are glad we saw it when we did.  Since then high-level deals were made so that the Chinese, in particular, could build casinos and turn it into a gambling mecca.  More than 70 casinos popped up almost overnight with construction litter everywhere and the gap between rich and poor flying wide apart.  We gather that organized crime moved in once the gambling started and the crime rates soared.  There was a huge burst in tourism with the new casinos, helped along with the shooting of a movie or two, bringing even more tourists.  The creation of a gambling destination (too huge for a small city) and sudden over-tourism was a perfect storm for disaster.  Many buildings are now abandoned and/or incomplete.

Most businesses are now foreign-owned and ethical travel companies like Intrepid have removed Sihanoukville from its list of places to visit.  In 2019 while visiting Kampot we met several ex-pats who had retired to Sihanoukville ten to twenty years earlier, who had recently sold out and fled to Kampot.  Kampot became our favourite place in Cambodia and we now worry if it will suffer the same fate as Sihanoukville.  Savvy business people today in Kampot are now trying to start a ferry run directly from Kampot to some of the islands off of Sihanoukville's shores so that people no longer have to use Sihanoukville as a gateway to the islands.

Sihanoukville has its pretty beaches: Serendipity and Otres are just two of the popular ones.  When we were there a few rustic bungalows and a few classy boutique hotels were on beautiful Otres.  We hear that most of that is disappearing with the construction of mega-resorts.

We stayed at a hostel in town simply because we didn't have transportation.   We rented a scooter one day to explore Otres and to head out of town.

Local people living and doing business on the road to Otres

A small part of Otres Beach, but the rest looking much the same

Countryside not far out of Sihanoukville

We get a short way out of town and the trip's over as the scooter dies.

We can book a van to drive us over the border to get to Vietnam.  We've had our Vietnam visa in hand since our guesthouse in Siem Reap got it for us.  That's another story as the van broke down before we got to the border, so we all hang out by the side of the road for about an hour until another van is sent to get us.

Not going anywhere

This border crossing was fine.  It is not what you'd call a stream-lined process to leave Cambodia and enter Vietnam and it did involve everyone being hit up for an American buck by the authorities to get your passport back.  Someone else has reported a little two-dollar scam that can't be avoided of being inspected by a doctor.  I find this petty corruption by officials annoying and it doesn't break the bank but it leaves a bitter taste.  Its small change for us, but lots of people cross here every day, so its big bucks for those pocketing the money.  And you have to wonder where it goes next.

At the Border Crossing

We change buses at the border and get to Ha Tien without incident.