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sihanoukville
We were looking forward to hitting the beaches again after a few weeks without and had heard good things about Sihanoukville. We decided to stay near Serendipity beach, the most vibrant part of town. Dorms can be as cheap as $2 or rooms are available for $10-12 so we opted for a room. Our first impression was slightly disappointing as the area looked very westernised and the beach wasn’t anything special but that soon changed. During the night the beach front was lined with loungers with dim lighting and relaxing music. BBQ food was offered at every restaurant at a good price and beers were also 50cent here.
Young girls walked around selling fireworks and lanterns so every now and again you had a little entertainment. By the end of the night we had watched dozen of firework displays, this was quite unique to this place. It wasn’t uncommon to see begging limbless veterans which was quite sad as it reminds you of the unfortunate ones that have suffered from the war and land mines.
The following morning we took an hour catamaran to the island Koh Rong and spent just over a day there.
On our last day we decided to walk to Sohka beach, 15 minutes away, which was mainly privately owned by a resort but a small portion was open to the public. It was also a nice quiet beach with white sand but apart from the restaurant at the resort which was quite pricey (for Cambodia standards) there was nowhere you could sit to have a proper meal so we opted for a cheap pot noodle lunch! We feel that an extra day in Koh Rong would have been the better option as our stay felt too short for the pristine place that it was. Additionally, Otres beach was another option but it was slightly further away. That night we dined early at Hungry Travellers Restaurant before a minivan picked us up from the travel agent at 7:30pm to take us to the main bus station where we caught the sleeper bus to Ho Chi Minh City. We highly recommend Morn Phyya Travel & Tours located at the top of serendipity beach road (lions round about) to the left. He was genuine and was the cheapest for visas and buses in the area (we asked everywhere).
Crossing the border into Vietnam was easy. My passport was ready before all the others on the bus so I had to wait for Max on the other side for about 30 minutes. Kindly enough the guards gave me fruit and bottled water which was a very nice gesture and was unexpected.