Sihanoukville (Cambodia)

Member Name: sun-is-shining

Product:	Cambodia
Date:	26/05/09 (7 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: one of the best beach towns in Cambodia

Disadvantages: crowded during high season (stuff like sun block really, really expensive - buy in Phnom Penh)

So it was about time to escape the smoggy chaos of Phnom Penh and hit the beach for the weekend...

Sihanoukville was cut out of the jungle about 60 years ago and since then has served as Cambodia's only significant sea port and decent beach resort.

About 4 hours from Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville is actually a stretch of coastline compromising several beaches each with there own distinct atmosphere and flavour.
The first is Victory beach, the first backpacker beach that made Sihanoukvlle's name known to the budget traveler crowd. These days it tends to attract a lot of sleeze in the form of sex tourists and hard-drugs users. Add to this it's close proximity to the industrial port and perhaps it's unsurprising that Victory is rapidly losing popularity to Serendipity and Occheutal beach.

Serendipity and Occheutal are actually the same beach, Serendipity is just a nickname given to the small rocky part of Occheutal situated beneath a headland that is lined with cheap beach bars that all offer pretty much the same deal; 3$ for a BBQ fish meal and happy hours usually from about 9pm.

The further down Occheutal you go the quiter it gets. It's quite easy to leave the crowds behind if you are willing to walk ten minutes down the coast...

Then, a few kilometres further down the coast you reach another headland. Here the road dissapears as you leave behind Sihanoukville and there are no guetshouses and just one small resort on the headland and a small stretch of more upmarket beach resturants in an otherwise empty expanse of beach and pine/palm trees...

So our choice the two times we went to Sihanoukville was staying just off of Occheutal/Serendipity beach. We enjoyed the atmosphere there because although there are a lot of young people looking to get drunk and party there there is always the option of finding a chilled out beach bar and enjoying conversation, great seafood, a sky full of stars and the sound of the ocean instead...It's nice having the luxury to choose between them rather than having drunks falling all over the place...Not that there is anything wrong with that! Just makes a nice change from most of the Thai islands where that seems to be the case...

I really like Sihanoukville for this. It has something for everyone.

Summary: nice beach escape and great for parties