2 weeks in Cambodia: Sihanoukville / Koh Rong

After the busy streets of Phnom Penh, we moved on to Sihanoukville and a nearby island called Koh Rong. Best known for beaches and partying, this was a completely different experience from the capital. 

We were put off staying on Sihanoukville's main 'Serendipity Beach' after reading one too many blogs saying that it was overcrowded and dirty from all the sewage being dumped there. From walking through, I got the impression that it's main audience were middle aged or old white men who had moved there full time to enjoy retirement in a way that they couldn't back home. Instead of staying there, we got a hostel in an area of the beach lower down called Otres. 

Otres

These areas of Sihanoukville, Otres 1 and Otres 2, are known for being more relaxed, spacious and all round more beautiful than Serendipity Beach. We were greeted by gorgeous white sand, hammocks and swing chairs a-plenty. Attracted by its beauty and it's previously 'untouched' status, there were a ton of young 20-something westerners who had moved there to work in bars and hostels. Hence Sihanoukville's newfound reputation as a party destination. I found Otres really interesting - walking down the beachfront you could pass a luxurious, peaceful bar full of families and couples, then immediately next to it would be one blasting music and filled with hippy travellers either passed out from the night before or getting ready for the next round. It was as if the 2 groups existed entirely independent of one another. Again, Cambodia seemed to be a country full of contrast. From what I can gather it's still relatively new to the whole backpacker phenomenon, and the country is developing and changing so rapidly. I guess areas like this are still in the process of figuring out who their audience is. I get the impression that Sihanoukville is a totally unrecognisable place from how it was 10 or 15 years ago - and I'd be fascinated to go back in another 10 years to see what it has become. 

Anyway, we enjoyed a couple of days here. The sunsets were gorgeous, we slept outdoors right on the beachfront one night (mainly because all the proper hostels were already booked, but still) and cuddled every adorable stray kitten that came our way. What it lacked in history compared with the other destinations it more than made up for in scenery. 

Sleeping outdoors - the mosquito nets look so beautiful in spite of their purpose

Koh Rong

From Serendipity Beach, ferries can take you to a number of small islands off the coast of Cambodia. The most famous of these are Koh Rong and Koh Rong Tao. Koh Rong was the first one to properly be discovered by tourists, but more recently people tend to recommend Koh Rong Tao instead because it's the more untouched island. But, by this point, I had had enough of people's obsession with finding the untouched areas. It's a cycle; a place like Koh Rong is discovered for its natural beauty, travellers flock there and share how great it is, it becomes more developed and therefore loses a bit of the original charm, so they get bored and move on to the next place. This all seems to happen in such a short span of time that it makes you wonder how long we can do it for. I'm not saying development is bad, because thanks to that I've been able to experience the place myself. I just find it silly when people complain about a place becoming too popular when they are actively contributing to it's popularity. Anyway, Koh Rong was easier to get to, had more hostel choices and I didn't care if it was a bit busier. Like Sihanoukville, it was a mix of locals and young backpackers who were either passing through or had decided to settle there and make a living. 

Rather than get a boat tour, we decided to go solo and spent our full day in Koh Rong trekking to the long beach on the other side.  And it was absolutely amazing. The beach was like an image from a postcard, except better... a postcard could never capture the full scale, or the sound of the waves, or how perfect the temperature of the sea was. We walked all the way down, stopping every now and then to admire the view and have a swim, then finally found a beach bar where we could have something to drink. I could have stayed there for days, reading books and watching the tiny white crabs scuttling across the sand. 

Koh Rong main beach

Trekking to the Long Beach

Long Beach

The day passed ridiculously fast and before I knew it we had to head to our ferry pick-up point, since trekking back after sunset would have been a nightmare. The ferry was quite... an experience. I use the term 'ferry' in quite a loose way, since it was basically a fishing boat, filled with drunk travellers who had been doing the whole-day boat tour. As we sat down they turned on a disco light and started blasting Justin Bieber, then, since it was the end of the day, the drivers had fun soaking us for the entire journey. I was conflicted between finding it funny but also being pissed off after having had such a relaxing time, and when Imogen started rummaging around to protect our books from getting wet, it dawned on me that we were basically 80 year old grannies compared to everyone else on the boat. The whole silliness of the situation gave me the giggles for the rest of the journey.

Koh Rong was a fantastic place and I would have loved to have spent more time there. But, with a tight schedule and some very severe sunburn, we caught a night bus to the next destination. Or rather, we missed the night bus because we're both idiots and were too absorbed in our amazing meal, so had to pay a Tuk Tuk to chase after it.

2 weeks in Cambodia: Phnom Penh

It's been a long time since I last wrote a blog post and I have so much to catch up on that it's hard to know where to begin again. The last few months have gone something like this: 

Home to England -> Kyoto for exams -> Cambodia -> Tokyo, Hiroshima & Kyoto -> England again -> settling back into Kyoto for second semester. 

Since I don't really need to write about England, and definitely don't need to write about my exams, Cambodia is the next place to pick up from. I flew down there at the beginning of Spring Break to join my friend Imogen for 2 weeks. I've never been to South East Asia before, and never done the whole travelling/living out of a hostel deal. To tell the truth, I've always been a bit scared of the idea because I have weirdly low energy levels and get exhausted from a weekend away from home let alone months of travelling. But since I was in Asia already, and could pop over relatively easy for just 2 weeks, it felt like a perfect opportunity to get a small taste for it. 

Since I was a newbie and my friend is more of a seasoned traveller I let her do almost all of the organising (very unnatural for me!) and she came up with a schedule for visiting the 3 top destinations in Cambodia - Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville, and Siem Reap. 

Phnom Penh:

Monks at the riverside

Part of the Royal Palace

Stupa at the Royal Palace

Veggie spring rolls with peanut butter sauce & vegan sushi

Beginning in Phnom Penh is a hell of a way to start Cambodia. The capital city actually seemed to have quite a bad reputation between other travellers - it's extremely busy, dusty, there's a lot of very visible poverty and it doesn't have the same beautiful scenery as some of Cambodia's other destinations. But, perhaps because I was full of energy and everything was so new to me, I thought it was amazing. Since me and Imogen were arriving separately, my first task was to get a Tuk Tuk from the airport to our hostel. It was the perfect way to get thrown into the hectic city, and I spend a half-terrified half-fascinated hour watching street vendors, people carrying ladders on motorbikes, stray cats and dogs and absolutely 0 road rules. 

Once I had found Imogen and got settled we were free to explore the city for a couple of days. Highlights were spotting Theravada monks everywhere (noticeably different to Japanese monks because of the deep orange robes) and seeing the grounds of the Royal Palace where the King of Cambodia still lives. The difference in wealth between locals and travellers is no more clear than in entry costs for places like the palace - for foreigners, $10, for Cambodians, 4000 riel which is $1. 

My friend is vegan and so I also had the first of many absolutely delicious vegan meals during our stay. Imogen and I both definitely like our food and whilst fancy meals shouldn't really be part of the traveller budget we used the "treat yourself" excuse a few too many times.

Human skulls inside the Stupa at the Killing Fields (not own photo)

A trip to Phnom Penh should include a visit to see the Killing Fields (Choeung Ek) about 10 miles outside of the city. This is one of the sites where the communist Khmer Rouge regime, under leader Pol Pot, mass murdered Cambodians back in the 70s (it's estimated that overall, he killed about 20% of the countries population). Pol Pot was a name I had come across before, and I knew that Cambodia had a 'dark history' of some sort, but as always it's hard for these things to sink in until you're made to sit and look at the evidence for yourself. 

The fields have been turned into a Buddhist memorial site, and visitors walk around the mass graves at their own pace whilst listening to an audio guide which tells you exactly what happened. The whole thing was explained in horrific detail but with great sensitivity. What struct me most is just how recent this all was; it's weird to think that my parents were alive and around my age whilst it was all happening. But then again, I suppose my future kids will look back at some of the stuff happening in the world today and find it bizarre that myself and the rest of the world just... kept on going with normal life. I was also sad to learn that, even once the regime itself was displaced, it took so many more years for the people responsible to be properly condemned. Pol Pot himself was allowed to live in comfort, only being sentenced to house arrest 20 years later in 1997, and then dying peacefully a year later.

One more thing which struck me during the visit was the stark separation between tourists and locals. The site was surrounded by a high barbed wire fence, which a child and an old man were begging outside of at one point. Whilst we all walked around plugged into our audio guides, feeling sorry for this poor country with an awful history, we simultaneously ignored the poverty going on literally next to us. It was horribly ironic and I'm still trying to process exactly how I feel about it. Anyway, it's something worth reading more about and definitely an important place to visit whilst you're in Cambodia, since it's still dealing with the consequences today. 

I was originally going to do just one post about Cambodia but I seem to have written more than enough about Phnom Penh alone, so I guess this will be split into 3 parts. Next up, the beaches of Sihanoukville.