When I saw what the city looked like from the ship, I thought that this might be an alright place. Something like Pattaya perhaps. However, it turns out that that was not to be. The one thing that stood out the most was that there doesn’t seem to be proper waste collection as rubbish and plastic bags were strewn everywhere.

I’m an open-minded traveller and I don’t expect the creature comforts that I get at home. I can deal with rudimentary sewerage systems (I can attest to that because I’ve been to the toilets in a train station in China’s country-side) and rubbish if the sights that a place offered were worth the trip. But alas, I can’t decide on that because we never got to see everything that the place had to offer.

That said, what I did see were quite pretty and charming. Like this Buddhist temple above and the cemetery beside it.

I saw a lot of poor people, especially around the tourist sites.

You’d feel sorry for some of the kid beggars but then you’d see them give whatever they collect to an adult and you wonder if you should be encouraging the kid’s situation in life.

Not all were beggars of course. Like this girl who was walking by us. She seemed contented just skipping and toting that pink bag of hers. Is it patronising to say “the best things in life are free” here? Whatever, it was how I felt.

One of the places that we were meant to stop at was the central market.

But upon seeing the crowd, our seasoned tour group (who has seen more than a few markets of this type) decided to forgo the adventure. How lazy and spoilt we were.

Is it bad to like only the beach resort of a town and nothing else that it has to offer? Because that’s how I felt when we walked into the Sokha Beach Resort for lunch. Besides the awesome buffet lunch, the best part of our time was having drinks underneath a cabana on their private beach.

I will end with two random shots. These are pictures of the Cambodian Royal Family that were inside the hotel.

And this is a sign inside the hotel. Yup, durians are as bad as weapons because durian burps and farts are très deadly.

In a way Sihanoukville, much like Koh Samui would be a nice place to chill and relax by the beach if that’s your kind of holiday. The people are friendly and food is very cheap. Once they improve their infrastructure and waste collection I think it can be just as successful as the Thai island.