Sihanoukville.

Our first impression of Sihanoukville wasn't a very positive one. The beachfront of Occheuteal/Serendipity Beach (near where we stayed) was crowded and covered side-by-side in cookie-cutter-identical bar-restaurants for a good mile-or-so. The elderly Western sex tourists with young Khmer women didn't add to the charm, and neither did the most typical customers the town seemed to have grown to serve; the backpackers in their early twenties who were there just to drink the USD 0.50 beers, most of whom seemed not to care about which corner of the world they were in.

Thus we escaped to Koh Rong as soon as we had recovered from the 13 hour night bus journey. However, as we came back from Koh Rong to Sihanoukville, we went to a hostel (Red Snapper) that had been recommended to us previously by a couple we met in Thailand, who were there now too. This hostel was located in the downtown-area of Sihanoukville. The main town itself is in the centre of the peninsula, a few kilometres away from the half-a-dozen beaches spread around it.

This time our experience of Sihanoukville was very different. Renting a scooter for the week allowed us to explore around and pick and choose the places we spent time at, and we found quite a few nice places spread about; beaches, bars, restaurants and the like.

But most important was the place we stayed at and with whom we stayed there. Us and the other couple who we had met before were the only customers at the guesthouse for the whole week we spent there. We got along well with them, as well as with the owner and the staff of the guesthouse. The rooms were nice, but in addition, we had a nice bar area, a lounge with a decent TV and a selection of DVDs, a computer with internet, pool table and so on, all for ourselves.

In the end, the best summary of the place is that it was a nice home away from home and we enjoyed taking a week off from sightseeing for lazing around and Sihanoukville was a pretty good place to do that.