Cambodia: I dreamed of it for so long!

Phnom Penh's Royal Palace

I dreamed to travel to Cambodia for about 8 years and eventually I've got to realize it!

Here I am, lying down on the nice beach of Sihanouk Ville named Otres beach and enjoying the beautiful sea and soft white sand while eating vegetable noodle.

Arriving here hasn't been that easy: it took me about 2 days, but I know it worth the effort.

At the arrival in Phnom Penh airport it is necessary to queue for the Visa. They have a strange system for this: at first you queue and leave your passport to the officer that passes it to a different office. Then you have to wait till somebody call your name (if you can recognize it spelt at the "Cambodian" way), pay 20 US$ and they give you back your passport stamped.

At that time your luggage are already there and you can get out of the airport.

Fortunately, just after the exit, there is the taxi office where you can get your taxi at a fixed price of 7$ for 1 ride anywhere within the city.

 I find this system wonderful as, even if I like bargaining, I couldn't be any less bothered doing it after an intercontinental flight and a long queue at the VISA office and in the end 7$ is a quite reasonable price.

The bus station in Phnom Penh is quite small, there are no platform, no notice boards and leaving buses are announced by a guy with a loudhailer impossible to understand, so the better way is always asking the driver.

I had a ticket for a luxury bus to Sihanouk Ville at 1.00 p.m. but at 2 o’clock the bus was not there yet and the driver of a different company made me get in a standard bus with the same ticket.

The difference between a standard bus and a luxury one is basically that the 1^st one stops every now and then taking ages to arrive at the final destination, the luxury one stops just once or twice to allow people going to the toilet.

Long distance buses, both standards and luxury have all toilets inside, which is quite convenient if you drank a lot before leaving.

The Mekong River in Phnom Penh

In Sihanouk Ville I stayed at the Beach Road Hotel http://www.beachroad-hotel.com/

I stayed here twice in different rooms. The first time I got a room by the pool with aircond for 20$ x night. The room was quite big and clean and with nice furniture. It had aircond, safety box (take care, they turn the power generator off at 10.00 a.m. for about 1 hour every day, during that time the safety box doesn’t work), sat TV and…nice tiny cockroaches…well, you’re in Cambodia after all!

I stayed there 3 nights this 1^st time and nobody ever come to clean the room…so, don’t expect it and try to keep the room clean if you stay few days.

The second time I went there I opted for a smaller room with aircond at the price of 15$ per night.

Unbelievable how much difference you get with just 5$ less: the room was really tiny and dirty and the bed was full of bedbugs so that in the middle of the night I had to ask the staff to change the room. They have been polite after they checked my bed and seen all that bugs and changed me the room with a bigger one more similar to the one I stayed the 1^st time…no bedbugs in this one, just a bad stink of cigarette and broken aircond, but still pleasant.

In Sihanouk Ville there are few nice beaches, the most famous is probably Serendipity beach that is basically like our Rimini’s beach but with a nicer sea.

Along this beach there are little bar/restaurants one by one and each of them offer their customers sun lounger and beach umbrella.

At the begin of the beach there is the foreign tourist part, where you get nice sun lounger, walking a bit further there is the local tourist part where instead of the sun lounger you get deckchairs. In this part of the beach there are no restaurants but just basic bars and big picnic tables where locals eat the food they bring from home.

Along the entire beach it is full of any kind of sellers that walk up and down all the day long. Here you can choose between manicure, fresh spring rolls (delicious!) crabs, fried prawns, squid barbeque, bracelet, fruit, etc…

I tried there every kind of food they offered me and it was very good and I would also dare to say safe…I mean, I never got sick…

If you don’t mind to have a long walk along the beach or spend few dollars for a mopped taxi you can go to the more quiet and relaxing Otres beach. Over there you can find just a couple of beach bar where you can get your sun lounger.

I visited also the Queen Hill resort http://www.sihanoukville-cambodia.com/sihanoukville-businesses/new7/queen-hill-resort.html , just before Otres beach. Despite of the nice position I’ve found it a bit expensive for what it offers. Cheap bungalows are not much cleaned, dark and really small. I’ve not seen more expensive rooms, so I can’t judge them.

As a diver I’ve also checked few dive centers in Sihanouk Ville and in the end I opted for “The Dive Shop” www.diveshopcambodia.com exactly in front of the Beach Road hotel.

I rented the full gear and it was all in good condition and of a good brand and the boat they use to go to the island and for the 1 day dive seems quite good even though I wouldn’t rely much on the emergency oxygen tank that was entirely rusted...

Some of the dive masters there are not much experienced. The 1^st time I dived with them the visibility was quite bad and the dive master (a Swiss folk named Andy that was taking his dive master patent and that was diving there since just 4 weeks) didn’t care at all about our group and lost all of us diving with him so that we had to finish the dive after 30 min. and didn’t enjoy it at all as we all were too busy not to get lost.

Furthermore, they don’t have a proper fish book, but just a few photos of the most common fishes and the dive master have no idea of different kind of fishes’ names. I would then recommend taking with you a tropical fish book.

Fisherman's boat

 The Dive Shop organizes daily dives in the island of Koh Rong www.kohrong-island.com and the little islands around. All the dives are on shallow water (12m max) as deeper they says there is only sand.

Dive visibility is always quite low because of the fishing boats and also because local people still use dynamite fishing. Despite of this, the corals there are still in very good conditions and jest doing snorkel on the beach it is possible to see lot of fishes.

If you want to do some snorkel at Koh Rong Island and your overnighing there I would recommend you to take with you also your snorkel gear: renting it with the dive will cost 10$ per day and the snorkel in some point of the island is as much good as the dive.

Paradise Bungalows in Koh Rong Island

If you decide to make few dives with them, the best solution is staying on the Koh Rong Island few days. The dive shop will offer you an accommodation at Paradise Beach Resort www.paradise-bungalows.com . To be honest, I’ve not appreciated it much. The owner, an English lad, is a bit rude and the restaurant service is so slow you can wait for hours the food you’ve ordered to find it out they mistake it. The restaurant has a nice terrace seafront but to be honest this is the only thing I appreciated about this place.

The Longe Bar at Paradise Bungalows

They completely destroyed a big amount of forest up on a hill to build small and hot bungalows that are quite dirty and dark. Just few of them have a good view of the sea and hardly you get night breeze. The resort run electricity all they long (during the day by solar panels, at night with a generator) but there is no outlet in the bungalows and the only way to charge your device is to plug it at the lounge bar’s outlets.

Jungle Destroyed to build bungalows at Paradise Resort

I stayed there just one night and then moved to the Tree house bungalows that is 200mt far along the beach, just after the “corner” www.treehouse-island.com .

Family Puppies at Tree House

The owners are a nice Cambodian girl named Nuch and her family.

The place is not so big like the paradise beach and probably the normal bungalows are as hot and dark as the ones at Paradise, but they didn’t destroy so much jungle to build their place as the bungalows are well fitted in the jungle. They also have seafront bungalows double floor on the trees that are just amazing. I stayed there three nights, spent 5 dollars more than the Paradise beach but I’m fully satisfied of my choice.

Tree House Bungalows

They have a power generator that runs from 6.00p.m. till midnight. All the bungalows and the tree houses have power outlets.

The tree houses have western toilets and showers at the 1^st floor and a bedroom plus a veranda at the 2^nd floor.

View from my bungalow at Tree House

In this resort works an Italian “pizzaiolo” (pizza man). I couldn’t understand if he is Nuch’s husband or if he just works there as I hadn’t the opportunity to speak with him, but he built a proper Italian wood oven and cooks delicious pizza, homemade bread and amazing breakfast cakes.

Also buffalos have holidays on this beach!

On the island I’ve also met a couple of Italians from Rome that decided to move here and open a little guest house not too far from the Tree house. They are still building it, but I suppose they are going to open it in a few months. It is named “Pura Vida”.

I would recommend taking your shower before 6.00 pm and then enjoying the sunset at a safe position: on your bed, protected by a mosquito net…it is a tropical island, between 6, 30 and 7, 30 p.m. mosquitoes are so aggressive that even spray repellent can’t anything against them! Same thing happens at sunrise.

Temple Island

If you think that just staying in the sea water at that time will protect you from them, you make a mistake: your head and probably part of your shoulder will be attacked by sand flies even in the middle of the sea (unless you don’t go very far from the shore).

The white sand beach is just few steps away of this resort but personally I preferred to stay in the beach in front of the resort. Apparently it is not so much charming as the other one as the sand is yellow and there are rocks around, but to look better at it rocks hide so many fishes that I’ve basically spent the whole time of my staying there snorkeling and diving…I couldn’t get out of the water!!

The beach in front of Tree House Bungalows

The white beach in front of the Paradise resort and the Monkey island resort www.monkeyisland-kohrong.com (nice accommodation run by a nice German guy) is very nice, but seems the current takes them lot of jellyfish. I don’t know if they are dangerous or not, but I was feeling better not to test it. On that white beach is also possible to see, while snorkeling, little seahorses.

The beach in front of Paradise and Monkey Island Bungalows

Along the entire islands beach, especially during nights with new moon, it is possible to notice on the seashore little blue lights: it is Fluorescent Plankton…just amazing!!

The place is perfect also for who wants try for the 1^st time a night dive…shallow warm water, fluorescent plankton, quiet…what would you desire more?

In the end, for the ones that like hiking, it is also possible to organize a trek in the island jungle…it won’t last much but you can still see monkeys and lot of birds. Ask your resort owner and they will advise you which path to follow or how to get a guide (I don’t think you can get lost in such a small island, but perhaps a guide will be able to show you animals that you wouldn’t otherwise notice).

After the Tree House resort there is a nice path within the jungle that brings you to another white sand beach. If you decide to go there, reminds to wear closed shoes, long trousers and a t-shirt (and spread them with insects repellent) as, even if it is just a just a short walk you will still be in a tropical jungle. I walked through it just with my sarong and flip flops and got a leech on my breast…L

To reach the island you can book your boat ride by any travel agency in Sihanouk Ville or at the Dive Shop (about 15$ x person). The boat will take a couple of hours to arrive at the island, the same to go back to Sihanouk Ville.

Sihanouk Ville is a nice town and if you’re a bit bored of beach life, but don’t want to stay all the day out for an excursion it work spending few dollars for a mopped taxi and visiting its temples and pagodas. I opted for a quick visit to the market, that seems not to be too much touristic, they don’t have much about souvenirs and you cannot bargain that much but it is quite interesting and I regret not to have visited it at the very 1^st day I arrived in Sihanouk Ville because there is a tailors area inside of it and I would have loved to have ordered there some suits and blouse.

I bought ½ kg of pepper instead. I don’t know if it is Kampot’s pepper or not, but tastes very good to me.

If you wish to go to Siem Reap (or Phnom Penh) from Sihanouk Ville and want to travel during night VET (Virak-Buntam Express Travel & Tour) has a night bus with “beds” that is fantastic!  Well, more than beds they are kind of tiny berths, but if you’re not too tall or fat they are fantastic as allow you to sleep comfortably enough all the night and arrive at destination in the early morning (during night for Phnom Penh) and still enjoy the full day. You can book it at any travel agency or at your hotel…I suggest you to try bargain a bit as the travel agency add some margins on it.

I’ve booked my bus ride and an accommodation (suggested by the travel agency) in Siem Reap with the Cool Banana Travel www.coolbananacambodia.com , run by a nice girl. They organized my pick up at the hotel to take me to the bus station. The bus was already there and left after few minutes. We arrived in Siem Reap in the early morning and the guest house taxi was already there waiting for me.

Angkor's Door

He also offered me to make me visit all the Angkor temples for a price of 16$ per day and I accepted. To be honest I’m not much satisfied by him. He didn’t tell me anything about the temples he brought me to visit and didn’t allow me to decide what to visit and when. The 1^st day at 4 p.m. he decided that it was over and brought me back to the guest house despite I asked him to visit few more temples. The 2^nd day he said me there were no more temples to visit at noon and when I said him I would pay just half day he went very angry and in the end I had to pay him the whole day.

Bayon Temple: smiling face of King Jayavarman VII

He is part of the staff of the guest house so, if it happens to you to stay there don’t accept his offer to show you the temples as he will spoil your time.

Traditional Costume dancers at Bayon Temple

About the guest house where I stayed, the Aroma guesthouse ( www.aromadaily.com ) it is very close to the market, rooms are quite cleaned and cheap 15$ with air cond and bathroom but the staff is terrible and unhelpful. They advise a free welcome drink but I’ve got none. Breakfast is quite expensive and very poor. They served it forgetting to give me cutlery or chopsticks. I immediately asked for them and kept on asking few more time, but after 45 min nothing arrived and I had to eat cold eggs with my hands.

Ta Prohm Temple

I also gave them some clothes for the laundry, but they brought them back as much dirty and stinking as I gave them.

They advertize free Wi-Fi, but the signal can’t be catch neither staying close to the router.

They don’t clean the room while you stay there (I start to think that nobody do it in Cambodia). The room window couldn’t be closed (does it make sense to have an air cond room with open windows) and the mosquito net on it was broken so that at night I’ve been heavily bite by mosquitoes.
I wouldn’t recommend this Gust house.

Angkor Wat

Along the street where it is placed there are lots of other guest houses. If you stay in one of them and want to have a cheap but nice breakfast, I suggest the kiosk just outside of the Wat Domnak. There are lot of locals eating there; the owners don’t speak English but it is enough you show them someone else dish and they will serve you the same.

If you don’t want to spend lot for a lunch at the temple’s stalls I also suggest you to buy few sandwiches from a lady that sells them in the same streets (it is not a shop but she have them on a table on the street). They are perfectly packed and delicious and cost so little!

Eventually, if you’re thirsty at the begin of the street there is a sugarcane seller and just few steps after, along the bridge in the late afternoon you can find a lady selling fried spiders and locusts.

Apsara Dancer

Apsara: supernatural woman

Having dinner in the Pub Street can be a bit expensive, but at the end of it you can find stalls that cook local food at a reasonable price: I suggest #1

Otherwise, a nice and cheap place where I really enjoyed my last night in Siem Reap is the “Sun Flower Restaurant”, no. 65 Mondol 1 Khum Svay, Dang kum, Siem Reap, phone 092 245 915 (it is at the end of Hospital Street). I had there a massive delicious dinner and spent just 7$.

In the same street, on the same side, about 300mt before there is also a nice place where to get a good Thai massage. Unfortunately I’ve not signed down the name of the place, but it is a bit after Pub Street and they have a fish tank outside and all the ladies are dressed in red. I had very good 1 hour Thai massage for 5$. They give you a pajama and the room has aircond.

Neak Pean Temple

About Angkor temples, they are amazing and worth an official guide that explain you what you see (otherwise they would look to you all the same and you can get quickly bored).

If you don’t want to pay for a guide for all the temples, get one at least for the Angkor Wat, you won’t regret it.

Do you fancy a fish Massage?

After Siem Reap I come back to Phnom Penh where I’ve spent a couple of nice days visiting the city, the Royal Palace (I suggest to pay for a guide. It cost 10$, but will explain you everything about the royal family, the traditions, etc…), different Wats, the Phnom Penh museum and….doing shopping!!!

Here I stayed at the Sky Park guest house www.skyparkguesthousepp.com

More than a guest house it is a Chinese business hotel. It is at about 40 min walk from the city center (you can take a mopped taxi for 1$ bargaining a bit), rooms are cleaned and staff is nice.

In the lobby there is free Wi-Fi, there is a lift and I’ve got a room with air cond and bathroom for 15$. I couldn’t check if the clean daily the rooms as I stayed here just one night.

They have a restaurant just in front but I didn’t like it much: it is expensive and portions are very small. Just on the left of this restaurant there is another one that had a pub upstairs: Asian Spice Café Pub (#79, St 111, Sangkat Boeung Prolet, Khan 7 Makara, Phnom Penh). Here food is gorgeous, abundant and at a reasonable price. They also have free Wi-Fi!

The Royal Palace Garden

Need a supermarket? At 5 minutes walk by the Sky Park Guest House there is a huge Lucky 7 that sells any kind of things you need and even more. Inside you can also find a gorgeous Patisserie.

If you fancy a massage I enjoyed the Akuya Massage Spa & Steams (#51, St 113, S/k Boeung Prolet, Khan 7 Makara, Phnom Penh. Phone 012 53 12 08). I’ve spent 5$ for 1 hour massage in air cond and got a pajama. They also provide you with a collection card that can be used by more than one person (for ex if you are a group of 5 getting massage or anything else they sign you 5 points): after 9 massage you get 1 for free, after 19 you get a free oil massage.

Phnom Penh Museum

About the shopping, I couldn’t buy any clothes as in Asia is almost impossible to find western sizes, but anything else like bags, shoes, belts, watches, etc are absolutely convenient.

Cambodian people are always very nice and helpful and always smile. Of course they always try to make money out of tourists, but who can blame them?

Sometimes you will get a bit stressed by the insistence of mopped taxi driver or by market vendors, but in the end they just try to earn their living.

Anyway, I would say Cambodia is nowadays a very safe and beautiful place to visit and if you use the same good sense you would also use in your own Country, you will hardly get into a dangerous situation.

Thanks to all the Cambodian that made my holiday unforgettable!