What I Love About... Sihanoukville, Cambodia

When I first travelled around South East Asia in late 2005, the final stage of this short 3 month adventure was a brief, week long rush through Cambodia, taking in Phnom Penh to do the Killing Fields and S21 prison, followed by a trip to Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat and the other surrounding temples, followed by an ill-fated trip via the wrong bus station overnight back to Bangkok ready to fly back home to England after being away for almost 15 months. What this long winded introduction is meant to establish is the fact that on my only previous visit to Cambodia, it all felt a little rushed!

I’d heard tale of a beachside resort town in Cambodia, close to the Vietnamese border on the eastern side of the southern coastline, albeit facing largely west due to the curvature of the coast. A place that to look at, had an unpronounceable name and seemed to be a little bit off the beaten track, especially for the inexperienced, uninitiated or the just plain weary! To my cost, portions of the rest of my time in South East Asia though, had come at the expense of a trip to Sihanoukville. Fortunately, time heals all wounds and it was 4 and a half years later in March 2010 that I managed to correct this oversight and find my way to the shores of Serendipity Beach, Sihanoukville, Cambodia!

Local transportation in Cambodia
en route to Sihanoukville

Firstly, access… Staying at the Sinh Café in Phnom Penh made it easy to book onward travel to wherever you wanted to go to. For Sihanoukville, which I didn’t think by this stage was so far off the beaten track, meant packing in with 2 dozen or so locals in a comfortable enough, but fiercely local VIP bus. Don’t let the VIP bit fool you, think National Express in the UK and think Greyhound in the US or Australia. It’s comfy enough, usually has air conditioning and doesn't generally allow livestock in the main part of the bus.

So putting aside the myth that you don’t know luxury until you’ve travelled with a cage of chickens on the seat next to you, the bus journey was pleasant enough with the only noteworthy negative being the excess of litter adorning the side of the road, something which will be one of the few negative parts of the trip to Sihanoukville and sadly one of Cambodia’s major issues downsides (I would argue that if that’s one of the main things that’s wrong, you've got something quite special on your hands).

You arrive into Sihanoukville into the main bus terminal. I’m sure if you’re on a bus full of backpackers it might seem a little less intimidating for a first timer but in some respects, arriving on a local bus made it all the more fun. Having been in south East Asia for 3 months to that point, a local bus station in a small provincial seaside resort that was catering to backpackers (and having done a little research into the place as well) didn’t seem that daunting. So, me and the missus hopped a tuk tuk to take us towards Serendipity with a shortlist of a half dozen guesthouses and hotels to sample and stay at. The one we elected on staying at turned out to have paper thin walls and a couple next door who were hell bent on watching movies on their laptop at high volume all night so sleep wasn't plentiful to start off with. The following day, we moved closer to the beach to a concrete building with strong walls, with a shared toilet / shower (us and 1 other single room) for the princely sum of around $10. We stayed there for another 4 nights in total.

A short walk down the dirt road lands you on Serendipity Beach. A long crescent shaped strip of sand  mostly populated by backpackers and Koh Lanta style, lined with bars restaurants that open out onto the beach. Sihanoukville has SCUBA diving sites with PADI and SSI both represented in official capacities amongst the dive companies. We dived there and while visibility was sometimes quite low, the pristine condition of the coral was as good as I have seen and although it wasn't as cheap as say Koh Tao or the Perhanthian Islands, it wasn't overly expensive as well.

I don’t remember doing that much during the 6 days I spent there, so let’s cut to the chase… What do I love about Sihanoukville?

Serendipity Beach, Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Firstly, and most significantly, is Serendipity beach. What it lacks in cleanliness in places, it makes up for in charm, atmosphere, location, cost and purity. I always harp on about the purity of a place. Where places like Haad Rin, Phuket, Koh Phi Phi etc have sold their soul to the tourist trade, others manage to delicately balance expectation with identity. Sihanoukville does feel at times like a beach resort kind of place… the thing is though, it always feels like it’s a Cambodian beach resort kind of place! The local brewery in Sihanoukville, pumping out freshly brewed Angkor Beer, is literally on the outskirts of this small town so when you’re drinking a glass of draft Angkor Beer, while sat on a beach watching the sun go down over the bluff, you know life is good. What makes life even better though is that the glass of cold, fresh beer in your hands only cost you 50 US cents… about 30 British pence… You can’t even buy a Mars Bar for that much!!!

The BBQ, Cocktail and Beer menu at Coco Shack,
Serendipity Beach, Sihanoukville

Our first trip  to the beach led to us discovering a bar / restaurant called Coco Shack. While it may have been the done thing to have a look, move on, try another, move on, try another etc. we didn't  There was something so good about Coco Shack that we didn't need to venture further afield. The bamboo beachside chairs, the 50 cent draft beer, the $1.50 cocktail menu that we proceeded, over the 5 days, to go through every cocktail on the menu! That’s not the best of it though… Every night around dusk, the specials chalkboard would be carried out to sit in the path of would be patrons. The drinks offers clearly labelled with their ridiculously cheap prices prominently displayed. Alongside that was the icing on the cake… The fresh seafood BBQ menu! For the sum of $3 you could choose from white fish, tuna or chicken, and have an accompanying side of garlic bread, salad, chips (French fries) or rice. The fish (if that was what was chosen) was then prepared and barbequed up on the beach itself a few metres away from where you would be sitting. The barbeque… half a steel drum with a grill lying across it and a whole heap of fire! Needless to say, after this glowing portrait, the food was as delicious as you could hope for. The best white fish I've ever tasted! No higher praise than that!

The view from the front. Sihanoukville, Cambodia

It feels like I should have peaked at this stage but there is one final notch to the ladder. Take the obvious quality of food to cost ratio and the cheap beer / cocktails, then sits yourself on the beach on a bamboo seat where you are so close to the high water mark where the waves crash and roll back, that with a hint of joyous regularity, the waves crash and break underneath your table. Not to the degree that you’re in danger of getting swept away… not even close to that, just enough that your feet get nicely cooled every few minutes.

Sunset at Serendipity Beach, Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Aside from all of this… there was a bar / restaurant away from the beach that did a pretty decent British Sunday roast dinner. There were cheap “deep fried Mars Bar’s” on every menu (if that’s your thing). There was a pharmacy in town that had a much needed supply of Doxycycline to bolster our supplies when they were getting low. A packet of cigarettes (again, if that’s your thing!) cost about 25 pence! There was a tuk tuk driver wearing a Nottingham Forest shirt… something I never expected to see but grinned ear to ear when I did! There are also ay trips away from Sihanoukville either into Vietnam, across to Kampot or into the surrounding swamps. Sihanoukville has so much going for it, it’s a bit of a mystery why it hasn’t reached the same lofty heights of Phi Phi or Koh Phangan (in terms of popularity at least). 
Ultimately… that’s what I love about Sihanoukville. A memory and an experience based on 5 days in 2010. Hopefully nothing has changed and in the grander scheme of things, if things do change, they will be for the good and not at the expense of what makes Sihanoukville one of the few well-trodden “off the beaten track” beachside destinations in South East Asia.