This post follows along with our next stop on our Asian cruise, Sihanoukville, Cambodia. I’m not going to talk much about Sihanoukville, although there isn’t much to say from what I saw. It’s a poor city that unfortunately has found itself in the hands of Chinese owned casinos. The look of the town is not Cambodian but pretty much caters to the Chinese, and you can see that everywhere.

Cambodia is undoubtedly much more impoverished than neighboring Thailand as well. Most roads in Sihanoukville are not paved, and getting around can be very dusty. Most of the city is littered with trash. I have to question why cruises come to this port as there isn’t anything to do in Sihanoukville as even the beaches are quite dirty.

Doing some research, I found the island of Koh Rong Sanloem off the coast of Sihanoukville that looked convincing to hang out. There was a beautiful beach, restaurants to eat at and places to chill with a beer. And given that we had so much time in Sihanoukville, this was a perfect activity instead of staying in the city.

[wpgmza id=”84″]

Video of my time in Sihanoukville and Koh Rong Sanloem! Filmed with my iPhone and a GoPro.

Sihanoukville has to be one of the worst ports I’ve visited. I want to put that out there first. Sihanoukville suffers from inadequate port facilities, and for most cruise travelers, this will be an eye-opening stop. It’s dirty, and after you leave the gates of the port, you are hounded by locals selling something to you. We felt we were on alert right away.

The mistake I made was not drawing money before getting off the ship. The problem with Sihanoukville is there are no facilities at the pier, no ATM, therefore no money. We had planned to travel to the island of Koh Long Sanloem, and to get there, we needed to have cash, and we needed to find an ATM. So that was goal number 1.

We first walked around near the pier and found some Chinese controlled casinos that were no help. All the ATMs we found either didn’t take are card or were not functioning. So we found a tuk-tuk and told our driver to take us to an ATM. Near the Serendipity Pier, I got money, but it only spitted out 100 dollar bills! To pay our driver, we needed to break the cash, which is harder to do in Cambodia!

Anyways it all ended up working out but barely. We were the last two on the previous morning ferry from Sihanoukville to Koh Rong Sanloem. Suppose a guy at the pier didn’t help us out and get us on the right boat; our day would have been ruined. So we tipped the guy, paid our driver, and made it on the ferry!

The island of Koh Rong Sanloem sits west off the coast of Sihanoukville and is part of a chain of islands, including the more significant island of Koh Rong. Both are worthwhile, but Koh Rong Sanloem is considered more off the beaten track and even less crowded than bigger Koh Rong.

Now getting there does take a while. The boat ride was something like two hours one way, even though it’s advertised to take only about an hour to an hour and a half. It’s deceptively further way, and the waters can be pretty rough. We got there, and that’s all that counts, and we had plenty of time before our return journey.

Arriving in Koh Rong Sanloem is easy. There is a long wooden pier with a restaurant attached, and from there, we walked the long beach. Here we found different types of restaurants and hotels where would-be travelers stay at. The charm of Koh Rong Sanloem is that it’s remote, laidback, and cheap. Hostel travelers and backpackers love to come here for that reason, where rooms cost less than 50 dollars a night, and beer is 1 dollar. Cambodia is cheap!

We decided to eat the first thing since it had been such a long morning to get out to the island. And yes, it was a great idea. I grabbed cash since the island, and for that, Cambodia doesn’t take credit cards. There was an inherent risk we wouldn’t have enough money, and we barely had enough after we paid for food and drinks.

The restaurant we ate at was close to the pier on a wide-open sandy part of the beach. Because it was early morning, we were pretty much the first to arrive and had a beautiful breezy table facing the ocean. It was indeed a far cry from Sihanoukville.

Cambodia has many local dishes, but most come in a variety of rice and noodles. And then, on top of that, you can add different types of vegetables or seafood. I had this excellent shrimp fried rice with a refreshing Cambodian beer while Roman had a local noodle dish.

Koh Rong Sanloem is more significant than you’d think, and the main beach of Koh Rong Sanloem is very long. I don’t think we ever walked the full beach but walked most of it, and it took around 45 minutes at a slow leisurely pace. The great thing about this beach is that even though it is laid back, there are still plenty of hotels and bars to relax.

Our primary strategy was to walk up and down the beach, take pictures, drink beer, and play in the water. Many of the hotels on Koh Rong Sanloem put out swings in the pool or on the beach, an excellent opportunity for travelers to snap a selfie.

From here, we hopped some beach bars with the cash we had left and bought some different types of mixed drinks and cheap Cambodian beer. All in all, there isn’t too much to do on Koh Rong Sanloem, but there are different types of water activities if you were staying longer. We decided to keep it more chill and just lounge on the beach. All and all, we had a great 6 hours doing just that.

The last ferries to leave are in the afternoon around 4 pm. After that, there isn’t another ferry until the next morning, so we needed to make sure our ferry came and that we got on it.

The problem with these ferries is that although there is a schedule, they loosely follow them. So when we showed up for our ferry at 4 pm, no ferry! But I knew this was going to happen beforehand, so all we could do is wait it out. The ferry eventually showed up, but it was like an hour later.

The boat ride back was way more intense. The waters were way rougher, and to make up for the lost time, the boat was moving fast. We were all packed inside the lower part of the ship, but this did not stop water coming into the lower decks, just showering people with water! If you were sitting near the edge of the boat, you were getting soaked.

The boat arrived back at the Serendipity Pier, and from there, we needed a tuk-tuk back to the cruise port terminal. Now at night, Sihanoukville is just crazy packed, and it took us a full 30 to 45 minutes by tuk-tuk to get back in clogged streets. By the time we got back, the sun was already down, and we had gone from sun up to sundown.

This was an interesting stop, and it could have gone wrong, mainly if we hung around Sihanoukville. There is just nothing to do in the city, and to me, it feels way to rundown to feel comfortable. The Chinese casinos add nothing to the tourism landscape, and for most, it feels seedy.

Koh Rong Sanloem, on the other hand, was different. You are relaxed without the dirty seediness of the Sihanoukville. For me, it goes to show that on the one hand, you can have two different travel experiences depending on what you decide to do. I’m glad I researched before arriving at Sihanoukville.

I also have a great video showcasing everything we did while in Sihanoukville. It gives a good impression of what Sihanoukville and Koh Rong Sanloem feel like.

Overall the I probably won’t be going back to Sihanoukville anytime soon, especially when there is nearby Siem Reap. But We had an enjoyable beach day, and it was a new country for me to cross off my list.

In the next part, we travel onwards to Vietnam.