Puke-a-ville in Sihanoukaville

Trip Start Jun 14, 2008
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Trip End Jun 20, 2009


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Flag of Cambodia  ,
Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The book of lies strikes again. More fool us for following it blindly I suppose. Whilst I could just about cope with the rubbish in the cities, I really was hoping to escape it all in Sihanoukaville. Lonely planet promised us clear waters, beautiful beaches. I believe the word "paradise" was in fact mentioned. Nothing could be further from the truth. The beaches, sadly, like the rest of Cambodia, are filthy. We walked for 6km from end to end trying to find a clear spot where we could lay our towels down. To no avail. Lying here would be about as much fun as sunbathing in a rubbish dump, which is what some people looked like they were doing.

The rubbish is obviously coming in from the ocean, as it forms patterns along the tide line as far as the eye can see. I am sure a huge amount of litter gets dumped into the ocean, so its difficult to combat that, but there is no one picking it up. There are very narrow stretches, where restaurants have tables and chairs lined up facing the water, that there isn't much litter; industrious owners obviously realizing it's not good for business and paying someone to clear their little patch. It would be a wise investment for all the businesses along the beach to get a few people to walk around with some rubbish bags and clear it all up.

We tried to make our escape to some nearby islands, which are privately owned so we hoped by extension would be cleaner. No joy though, they were all booked out for the next week.

Since we were in town to work on our tans and chill out on the beach, we naturally wanted to get out of Sihanoukaville as quickly as possible, so we changed our Vietnam to start 2 days earlier, and high tailed it out of there. A disappointing end to what was otherwise a magical time in Cambodia.  

Travellers Tips If you want to go to the private islands i.e. bamboo or lazy beach, book at least a week ahead in high season as they are small so not much availability. You could end up disappointed like us; although we didn't meet anyone who had been there so not sure if they were any better.
We stayed in the Sunday guest house, it was 8 dollars a night for a double room with satellite tv and private bathroom. It was a 5 min walk from Beach road where alot of the pubs / restaurants are near Serendipity Beach. Also we didn't venture up to Independence beach so that may be nicer, although the book of lies called it the scruffier of the two beaches, so we couldn't quite bring ourselves to have a look!
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