Sihanoukville and Bamboo Island

7th - 12th January

Sihanoukville is supposedly Cambodia’s sunshine coast, a place, to quote a well known source “where you come to take a break from your holiday”. The town of Sihanoukville sits on a peninsular and features a number of resorts and beaches.

We took motorbike taxi’s down to Serendipity Beach, which despite it’s increasing popularity was at least supposed to be lacking in girlie bars and the men that frequent them (if you want to see this, if just for comedy value, head straight to Weather Station Hill…). The place was less built up than we’d been expecting but the beach was really disappointing. Every square inch of sand was covered by wicker chairs and tables, all very well for a sundowner but where were we supposed to sunbathe?! I guess the tourists here were way more interested in drinking beer than tanning, though some could have done well to take a swim once in a while! The atmosphere was also a bit seedy and the stark contrast in wealth was difficult to deal with. Hawkers, old and young alike (some of the children were just a few years old) comb the beach selling their wares. This in itself isn’t so unusual in S.E Asia, but the sellers here were very clearly desperate for the business and it was heart breaking to repeatedly say no.

The neighbouring Otres Beach was much quieter and more conducive to a relaxing and guilt free afternoon sunbathing, though not without hawkers entirely. We decided to take a break from the mainland and head to one of the islands off the coast. The nearest, Koh Russei, known as Bamboo Island, was just 45 minutes by longtail boat from Serendipity, but a world away from the madness of Sihanoukville. There are two “resorts” on the island. We’d done a little research and made for Koh Ruh, where a wooden hut was ours for the crazy price of $12! What happened to $5 a night beach huts?! Did we mention that Cambodia in general and Sihanoukville in particular was probably the most expensive place (bar the obvious Australia, Singapore and L.A.) we’ve visited in 10 months?

There was nothing to do here except sleep, eat and laze on the beach, so it was definitely our kind of place! There are no bars or restaurants here, so you are very much at the mercy of the Ko Ruh restaurant. The food was great and reasonably priced but the cleanliness of the restaurant left a lot to be desired and the swarms of flies were massively off putting. We didn’t want to think the probable state of the kitchen.