SOUTHEAST ASIA

Sihanoukville: More Than a Backpacker’s Town — Part 1

Or a Resort Paradise

Photo taken by Author

Sihanoukville is a city located in the Southwest coast of Cambodia.

Those who have visited the city in the past few years describe it as a big resort paradise under construction that is being built by contractors from China.

9 years ago, when I visited this town, it was often referred to as one of the best Backpacker places to go.

In fact, people who visited Sihanoukville back then and now reminisce disappointedly about what the city has become in comparison to what it used to be.

I haven’t visited Sihanoukville again, though I would love to.

For me, this city was much more than a Backpacker’s paradise.

Photo taken by Author

I’ve spent close to a month there, hijacking my own travel plans of seeing everything in a short time.

It was so much better this way.

Most travellers who visit different cities in Southeast Asia find Sihanoukville to be not as fascinating as other places they have seen.

Maybe the beaches were not as pristine as in the Perhentians.

Possibly the bungalows you stayed in were not as fancy as in Koh Tao.

But if you stop being a tourist who is after the best sandy beach to lay on, after the best wave to surf to, after the best corals to explore…you see my point,

If you just stop that and immerse yourself in the beauty of life in Sihanoukville, you might see what I have seen there;

a town with big hearted people who’ll share their food with you, children with so much potential, a folk who is healing from their trauma, and young people who are full of life.

Sihanoukville surely stole my heart.

Photo taken by Author

This was the second town I have visited in Cambodia.

After crossing the land border from Thailand and staying in Siem Reap for a couple of days to explore Angkor Wat, I took a bus to Sihanoukville.

My plan was to move along the coast, go to Phnom Penh and then take a bus to Laos.

I was sitting next to a young girl with beautiful brown hair that is neatly tied. She was wearing a Vichy-chequered shirt and told me that she just finished high school.

an attempt to illustrate that bus journey — drawn by Author

She explained to me that she actually wanted to take more English classes in school, but she had to switch to learning Mandarin.

Her teacher, who wanted to win the local elections, changed the school’s obligatory second language to Mandarin to get the support of the Chinese government.

I am not deeply informed about Cambodian politics to understand the connection and how elections work there, but feeling empathy for her frustration, I said her English was already perfectly good and that I am also not a native speaker.

We took a little break at a gas station during the bus ride from Siem Reap to Sihanoukville.

I went out to smoke a cigarette.

A tall guy around my age wearing shorts and flip-flops walked towards me and asked for a lighter.

He had a French accent.

He said he is staying a few days in Sihanoukville and then moving toward Vietnam with his two friends from Italy.

Little did I know that this Breton boy and I would be so charmed by Sihanoukville and its people that we end up staying there much longer than we had planned.

Thank you for reading the first part of Sihanoukville — More Than a Backpacker’s Town.

I will soon come back with Part 2.

Here’s Part 2:

Sihanoukville: More Than a Backpacker’s Town — Part 2