SOUTHEAST ASIA
Sihanoukville: More Than a Backpacker’s Town — Part 2
Sleeping on $1 a Night Mattress, a Utopia
Where were we?
If you haven’t read Part 1, start here:
Our bus reached Sihanoukville at night. It stopped right in front of the hostel I was going to stay at; Utopia.
I found their page online and was intrigued.
It was an extremely, almost suspiciously budget-friendly Backpacker’s hostel that had a pool, its own bar, and restaurants integrated into its garden and even a cinema.
A Utopia indeed.
The Breton boy, let’s call him Andy, and his two friends also decided to stay at Utopia for the night.
After having a few drinks at the bar, we went to check out our beds that cost $1 a night.
I know!
They were pretty much like blue gym mats at school, stacked up next to each other.
The rooms were clean.
Each person also had their own private locker.
It was a pretty good bargain.
The next day, Andy’s friends moved to a nicer guest house in Otres Beach.
He and I decided to stay at Utopia for the time being.
The sleep wasn’t the smoothest, but it felt like there was much to explore in this funky hostel between the Two Lions Roundabout and the Ou Chheuteal Beach.
The place was full of amazing people; Cambodian or foreign.
We took a walk on the beach and decided to hang out with the people from the hostel at night.
On the beach, we saw people staying in our hostel giving out flyers.
Apparently, if you just gave flyers for an hour on the beach and poured drinks behind the bar in the evening, you could stay for free.
Our eyes were filled with dollar signs.
Imagine all the $1 bills we were about to save!
But that was not all. All the meals from the integrated restaurants could be purchased at a 50% price, up to 5 beers a day were for free, cocktails, and cigarettes half-price.
To think that money is the only way of paying for labour! Have you ever had a better job than this?
The place has changed owners and is currently shut down. But the time I stayed there, the owners were US Americans who lived in Cambodia, and possibly also were married to Cambodians — I am not sure.
The staff was a mix of locals from Sihanoukville, Cambodians from other towns and Backpackers from all over the world who stayed longer.
We asked the 2 managers, also backpackers from the USA and Canada, if we could also work there.
And just like that, we became part of the Utopia family.
This is the end of Part — 2.
In the next part, I will talk about a rival hostel: The Dolphin Shack
