Sihanoukville, Cambodia

[Steerpike58]

Our cruise (Viking, Bangkok to Hong Kong) gave us two half-days in Sihanoukville, Cambodia - arrived around noon on day 1, left around 6pm day 2.  

 

I'm not sure how to describe Sihanoukville. The biggest question would be 'why' - why did we stop there? It's a terribly depressing place, in so many ways. We had two excursions provided by Viking. The first one took us to the fishing harbor area of Sihanoukville.  Dilapidated fishing boats were in the harbor, with local stores selling not much of anything. The poverty was surprising. We then went to a local temple. This too was quite run-down, with quite a few poor families begging. We gave some money to some kids who 'looked after' our shoes (which we removed to enter the temple), and the money was immediately taken from them by someone else. We were then taken to a beach area that was quite empty.  That was it for day 1. Day 2, we were taken to another beach area (this time with more people and shops) and given some local food, then taken to a busy local market in town, and then to a high-end casino/hotel with a fancy private beach area with a bar. There were Rolls Royce's and Bentleys parked outside the casino/hotel. 

 

Everywhere you look, and I mean everywhere, there are high-rise buildings frozen mid-construction, with no activity whatsoever. The guide said something like 80 buildings were abandoned mid-construction, due to the Chinese real-estate market crash (he may have said more than that but I'll stick with 80 to be conservative).  Apparently Sihanoukville was intended to be the next 'Macau' or 'Hong Kong', with lots of Chinese money flowing in, until the crash. I'm guessing lots of people moved here to work in the construction and services industry, fueled by the casinos and construction, and now, they are unemployed. I've been to many poor countries in South-East Asia (including Dacca, Bangladesh), but none quite compare to Sihanoukville in terms of the contrast between rich and poor. 

 

My guess is, Viking have to stop there because there's no better alterative in the vicinity. Plus, I think they offer some optional inland excursions (to Phnom Pen) that need a place to set off from, so Sihanoukville gets the visit.  If ever there was a place to avoid, this might be it!  I will say, it was interesting - I've never seen so many abandoned construction projects, and so much poverty. It really shows what can happen in a third-world country when the economy takes a dive. 

[Mrs. Claypool]

We had the same experience on a Seabourn voyage last spring, and I had the same thoughts as you. 
 

it’s sad to hear that there have evidently been no improvements during the intervening year. 

[John Bull]

In many ways Cambodia is stuck in the 18th Century, and the poverty isn't because the economy has taken a dive - it's always been a very poor & backward country. Remember this was the country of Pol Pot & the Khmer Rouge, so the country went backwards when the neighbouring tiger economies were zooming forward.

 

When we visited Sihanoukville, in a pretty second-rate way it was Cambodia's playground, In the past decade or two Chinese investment accelerated that - but yes, it back-fired. 

We were there before the building work, and enjoyed our day in and around Sihanoukville.  Others felt that it was an awful port-of-call, but it's part of the world that we live in, it's an education how other people live, and we're glad that we went there.

We don't plan to go back anyway, but making it a Cambodian Macao would put us off whether the high-rises were shells or thriving

 

BTW Quite a few cruise ships stop there, perhaps more because it's conveniently located between Thailand & Vietnam. 

Yes, your overnight stop was probably because Phnom Penh (3 hours e/w) is hardly worth the travel in one day, plus two days also means that for those with deep pockets flight excursions can be arranged to Angkor Wat

 

JB 🙂

 

[Steerpike58]

4 hours ago, John Bull said:

In many ways Cambodia is stuck in the 18th Century, and the poverty isn't because the economy has taken a dive - it's always been a very poor & backward country. Remember this was the country of Pol Pot & the Khmer Rouge, so the country went backwards when the neighbouring tiger economies were zooming forward.

 

When we visited Sihanoukville, in a pretty second-rate way it was Cambodia's playground, In the past decade or two Chinese investment accelerated that - but yes, it back-fired. 

We were there before the building work, and enjoyed our day in and around Sihanoukville.  Others felt that it was an awful port-of-call, but it's part of the world that we live in, it's an education how other people live, and we're glad that we went there.

We don't plan to go back anyway, but making it a Cambodian Macao would put us off whether the high-rises were shells or thriving

 

BTW Quite a few cruise ships stop there, perhaps more because it's conveniently located between Thailand & Vietnam. 

Yes, your overnight stop was probably because Phnom Penh (3 hours e/w) is hardly worth the travel in one day, plus two days also means that for those with deep pockets flight excursions can be arranged to Angkor Wat

 

JB 🙂

 

When were you there?  I would have loved to see it before the building boom/bust. 

 

It was certainly an education, and for that I was grateful. It got me reading more about Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge, and also, made me want to read more about the whole Chinese investment story. 

 

I saw a potentially similar situation in Vietnam, though less extreme; there were lots of what looked like stalled construction projects along the road between the port and downtown Saigon (HCMC), and then later, Ha Long Bay.  Ha Long Bay is clearly getting ruined by over-development; it's starting to look like a western city, with a totally out-of-place Ferris wheel, a cable car, and lots of high-rise hotels and low-rise 'vacation villages'. 

 

I didn't notice any 'stalled construction projects' in Bangkok, interestingly.  I realize that Bangkok is 'ahead' of the neighboring countries in terms of development, but it seems to have escaped the recent blight of failed projects. 

 

Despite all the setbacks, the people of Cambodia share the lovely 'mellow' attitude that you see in Thailand and Vietnam. 

 

Do you know how Sihanoukville compares to Siem Reap? We want to visit Angkor Wat at some point and Sihanoukville made me wonder what SR would be like.  

 

As an aside, I wonder what overseas tourists think about a visit to Las Vegas, if they manage to get 'off the strip'? I once drove randomly around Las Vegas, and once you get half a block from the 'strip', it can be pretty grim - broken streets, homeless encampments, scary sense of danger. 

 

[John Bull]

10 hours ago, Steerpike58 said:

When were you there?  I would have loved to see it before the building boom/bust. 

 

It was certainly an education, and for that I was grateful. It got me reading more about Pol Pot/Khmer Rouge, and also, made me want to read more about the whole Chinese investment story. 

 

I saw a potentially similar situation in Vietnam, though less extreme; there were lots of what looked like stalled construction projects along the road between the port and downtown Saigon (HCMC), and then later, Ha Long Bay.  Ha Long Bay is clearly getting ruined by over-development; it's starting to look like a western city, with a totally out-of-place Ferris wheel, a cable car, and lots of high-rise hotels and low-rise 'vacation villages'. 

 

I didn't notice any 'stalled construction projects' in Bangkok, interestingly.  I realize that Bangkok is 'ahead' of the neighboring countries in terms of development, but it seems to have escaped the recent blight of failed projects. 

 

Despite all the setbacks, the people of Cambodia share the lovely 'mellow' attitude that you see in Thailand and Vietnam. 

 

Do you know how Sihanoukville compares to Siem Reap? We want to visit Angkor Wat at some point and Sihanoukville made me wonder what SR would be like.  

 

As an aside, I wonder what overseas tourists think about a visit to Las Vegas, if they manage to get 'off the strip'? I once drove randomly around Las Vegas, and once you get half a block from the 'strip', it can be pretty grim - broken streets, homeless encampments, scary sense of danger. 

 

 

 That was back in 2010 !!

Long after Pol Pot's "killing fields", but I remembered it from when it was news.

And of course before the building boom-and-bust.

 

A few weeks ago, responding to a post on Cruise Critic, I mentioned a grubby but interesting little fishing village in the countryside down the coast from Sihanoukville. The OP asked me where it was - If i'd even known the name of the village I couldn't remember it, and it took me ages to find it on googlemaps . Check it out on this Googlemaps link  https://maps.app.goo.gl/aoNVtobZu5P5x7id9 and you'll understand why I struggled to find it, no longer in the countryside but amongst the high-rise buildings.

Some photos of it on that thread https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2976738-sihanoukville-kog-rong-kog-saloem/#comment-66706105

 

Yes, we know exactly what you mean by the peoples' "mellow" attitude. Life is what it is, stay laid-back and  happy despite circumstances.

 

Can't offer any comparisons with Siem Reap because we didn't go there - un-obliging ship's captain refused to sail the ship along about 300 miles of dusty roads  🙃

 

I remember our first visit to Lass Vegas - we drove from lonely Death Valley at dusk, and ended up on a different neon-lit planet 😃

But couldn't help but see the other side of Vegas

 

Vietnam was much livelier than Cambodia, but tourism was in its infancy which meant it was difficult to fix things up but ridiculously cheap.

An all-day junk cruise negotiated at the pier & getting lost from civilisation amongst the limestone karsts of Ha Long bay was something else. And the mist (which is normal for the bay) added to the eerie watery moonscape. About a dozen of us at $10 a head. 

As I understand it, now crowded and waaay more expensive

And I'd organised a speedboat from Saigon (small ship, we ported in the city) up the Saigon River to the Cu Chi tunnels. Booking it was fraught because of the language barrier, wasn't too sure how big the boat would be, whether we'd find sharers on the ship (we booked it on the grounds that we reckoned it worth the cost even if it was just the two of us), and whether even the guy would show. But he was good as gold waiting for us at the ship, boat would have taken twice as many as the 8 of us but it meant we all had great seats with the wind i our hair, and it cost us about $10, each, same as a van to Cu Chi. 

I now see speedboats to Cu Chi professionally offered on the internet.

 

Apologies for the long screed, as you may have realised, the best cruise we ever had - and on the rustiest old tub we've ever sailed (Loveboat's twin-sister), but such a homely ship & crew, & congenial company..

 

JB 🙂

[JohnCoffield]

On 4/10/2024 at 6:24 PM, Steerpike58 said:

Our cruise (Viking, Bangkok to Hong Kong) gave us two half-days in Sihanoukville, Cambodia - arrived around noon on day 1, left around 6pm day 2.  

 

I'm not sure how to describe Sihanoukville. The biggest question would be 'why' - why did we stop there? It's a terribly depressing place, in so many ways. We had two excursions provided by Viking. The first one took us to the fishing harbor area of Sihanoukville.  Dilapidated fishing boats were in the harbor, with local stores selling not much of anything. The poverty was surprising. We then went to a local temple. This too was quite run-down, with quite a few poor families begging. We gave some money to some kids who 'looked after' our shoes (which we removed to enter the temple), and the money was immediately taken from them by someone else. We were then taken to a beach area that was quite empty.  That was it for day 1. Day 2, we were taken to another beach area (this time with more people and shops) and given some local food, then taken to a busy local market in town, and then to a high-end casino/hotel with a fancy private beach area with a bar. There were Rolls Royce's and Bentleys parked outside the casino/hotel. 

 

Everywhere you look, and I mean everywhere, there are high-rise buildings frozen mid-construction, with no activity whatsoever. The guide said something like 80 buildings were abandoned mid-construction, due to the Chinese real-estate market crash (he may have said more than that but I'll stick with 80 to be conservative).  Apparently Sihanoukville was intended to be the next 'Macau' or 'Hong Kong', with lots of Chinese money flowing in, until the crash. I'm guessing lots of people moved here to work in the construction and services industry, fueled by the casinos and construction, and now, they are unemployed. I've been to many poor countries in South-East Asia (including Dacca, Bangladesh), but none quite compare to Sihanoukville in terms of the contrast between rich and poor. 

 

My guess is, Viking have to stop there because there's no better alterative in the vicinity. Plus, I think they offer some optional inland excursions (to Phnom Pen) that need a place to set off from, so Sihanoukville gets the visit.  If ever there was a place to avoid, this might be it!  I will say, it was interesting - I've never seen so many abandoned construction projects, and so much poverty. It really shows what can happen in a third-world country when the economy takes a dive. 

Thanks for your comments above. We are stopping there for a day with Holland America this November. I'm minded to stay on the ship that day - something we've never done before.

[austromyrtus]

8 hours ago, JohnCoffield said:

Thanks for your comments above. We are stopping there for a day with Holland America this November. I'm minded to stay on the ship that day - something we've never done before.

it is very sad what has happened to sihanoukville. i enjoyed a holiday there back in 2007 as part of a cambodian land holiday before the cambodian government was lured into allowing the disastrous chinese casino investment & development. if this is your only visit to cambodia, i would urge you not to stay on the ship but rather to pay for a ship excursion into phnom penh which is really interesting culturally, historically & now a booming city - quite the very opposite of sihanoukville!

[John Bull]

8 hours ago, austromyrtus said:

it is very sad what has happened to sihanoukville. i enjoyed a holiday there back in 2007 as part of a cambodian land holiday before the cambodian government was lured into allowing the disastrous chinese casino investment & development. if this is your only visit to cambodia, i would urge you not to stay on the ship but rather to pay for a ship excursion into phnom penh which is really interesting culturally, historically & now a booming city - quite the very opposite of sihanoukville!

 

I certainly agree you shouldn't just stay on the ship - it'd be a shame to waste the one day when you can see some of this country.

 

If you don't want to take the long haul to PP, check out the ship's more-local offerings or negotiate with vans (not tuk-tuks) at the port to leave Sihanoukville in the rear-view mirror for a local countryside tour to Ream National Park. We did this, and our day also included a waterfall, a 10-15 minute long-tail boat ride to a little off-shore island (Kaoh Chanloh ?) for a swim & beach-time, and the afore-said grubby fishing village. The price was silly-low, but because it was such a memorable day we doubled it with the tip - and I'm not a generous man.

Ream Nat Park is the opposite of Sihanuokville, clean and pleasant and relaxing. At the temple in the Park, for a donation of pennies we received a blessing and the promise of a long life. Since it cost practically nothing I donated double in order to live to the age of 150. It seems to have worked, I'm now well over half-way there 😏

 

To PP by ship's excursion would make sense because of the distance & the roads, but altho Cambodia is very backward it's not dangerous & the people are friendly.

 

JB 🙂

[JohnCoffield]

Thanks to both Austromyrtus & John Bull - your comments are useful & we'll look further into what is on offer. Cheers 🍻