CAMBODIA
Loving and Hating
How can one love and hate a place at the same time?
After a three months trip around South East Asia, Cambodia is by far the only country that makes me think twice about the entire experience I had there.
I never know, when talking to a friend, if I should advise them to visit it or just to skip it.
“But why?” you might ask… <!– more –>well, the number of amazing and beautiful places I’ve visited, and the amount of unfortunate events that happened to me while in Cambodia were pretty much the same!
loving cambodia
The uniqueness of the Khmer Culture, it’s exquisite landscapes and Architecture, the happiness of its people, the food and it’s diversified and exotic fauna, are for me what makes Cambodia such an interesting place to visit.
From the complex of temples in Siem Reap to the paradisiac island of Koh Rong Samloem I had the chance of experiencing many of what this country has to offer and it’s impressing!
Phnom Penh
The trip was roughly two weeks and started in Phnom Penh (via bus from Ho Chi Minh with Manel the guitarist from Vietnam’s post), we arrived late at night and went to eat at the riverside in one of many restaurants that served Happy Pizzas.
These Happy Pizzas consisted of normal daily life pizzas cooked with Marijuana butter, definitely a blast and truly advisable! If you wanna try it head to Tripadvisor, check the best Happy Pizza restaurants and head to the 2nd or 3rd one on the list, the pizzas will still be amazing and you can try to bargain a discount for not going to the neighbor’s famous pizzeria. We got the Marijuana butter for free (they usually charge an extra for it).
The next interesting things we visited in Phnom Penh and that I also advise you to do are:
- The royal residence of the king of Cambodia at the Royal Palace.
- Learning about the recent past horrific story of Khmer Rouge dictatorship with its leader Pol Pot in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields.
The temples of Angkor
To reach the temples of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and the rest of the complex you need to head to Siem Reap, where you can take a public transport like a tuk-tuk or taxi or you can even rent a bike.
I personally took a tour from my hostel and got to meet a group of Argentinian – Chilean people that made the experience there much more enjoyable. One of the main tips I give if you’re traveling solo and just arrived in a new place, do a tour from your hostel, it can even be a Free Walking tour, you will definitely meet other solo travelers and maybe, just maybe, make a new friend for life!
The temples are absolutely incredible, the Architecture is unbelievable minutious and it completely shows how majestic the city of Angkor was back in the 12th century and how powerful and rich their emperor Suryavarman II was.
I truly advise you to buy the 2 days ticket or if you have enough time the 3 days one. One day is enough to make the check on the bucket list but not enough if you really wanna enjoy it. The second greatest tip I can give you is for you to go early in the morning to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat, it might be packed with tourists but its incredible! Also, take your own bike or tuk-tuk and wamble around all the tiny tourist-free temples, draw, meditate, think about life.. enjoy the magical spirit of the place!
Koh rong & Koh rong samloem islands
The port to these gorgeous islands is at the city of Sihanoukville, a 12 hours bus ride from Siem Reap or a 4 hours ride from Phnom Penh.
Here you can choose which paradise you want to visit:
- Koh Rong, the Party island, with dozens of bars and a big party vibe going on but also with some beautiful white sand beaches like the Long Set Beach and the Long Beach, on different parts of the island.
- Koh Rong Samloem, the Relax/honeymoon island, a little paradise on earth! A totally stress-free island with very few party vibes and beautiful almost deserted beaches.
- There are also other famous islands like Koh Ta Kiev and some other smaller islets which should be as beautiful as these two.
In Koh Rong, you can find the Full Moon Party just like in Thailand and also have beach and forest experiences. It’s the perfect island for groups of friends or backpackers that enjoy partying and relaxing.
In Samloem the tourism is not that great yet so it’s still pretty enjoyable without many people and if you’re tired of watching temples or of bus rides it’s the perfect stop for a week to get that tan on, do some snorkeling and relax.
Have in mind that these are islands in South East Asia and that the food might not be properly stored so you can get food poisoning or there might be power shortages since the hostels and bars work on the energy provided by generators so bring your power bank or spare batteries for your electronics.
Apart from these setbacks I met an amazing group of Chilean girls (which I met again later in Chile), and a French guy which joined me exploring the island on a 1 hour hike through the forest in flipflops and without water (you can see it in the video) just to reach the Clearwater Bay which wasn’t so clear and actually had some bottles and garbage around. The next day we took a boat to Saracen Bay and then a small 10 minutes walk to the Lazy beach which was paradisiac, empty and completely worth it!
As with all the islands on these trip, the best part was always watching the breathtaking sunrises and sunsets that, alone or with good company, were pure and magical relaxation moments.
HATING CAMBODIA
As not everything is a bed of roses here are the experiences that make me have mixed-feelings regarding Cambodia.
General points
Just as soon you enter the country through Vietnam you start seeing Casinos and at the bus stops you realize the main used currency here is the US Dollar and the national coin is used mainly as change.
Later I also realized that in Sihanoukville a big set of constructions was being carried. As I arrived late at night I could see people jogging in the streets, at 4 am, they were Chinese. As I’ve been told the Chinese are the ones building the Casinos in Cambodia and therefore you can mainly only see Chinese People in the entire city of Sihanoukville.
With the number of tourists highly overcoming the ones in Vietnam, it was shocking to understand the reality there.
The island of Koh Rong is completely overpacked with hostels owned by South American, British or Australians. I later overheard that in just a couple of years all the hostels will be demolished to give rise to new 5 stars resorts, increasing, therefore, the amount of money in the region and the already vast amount of tourists.
The mass Tourism in Angkor Wat is so big that in order to take photos in the main temples one has to wait around 15 minutes on a queue. Also, to watch the sunrise over the main temple one has the company of at least 300 other people. Which is fun if you don’t like being alone…
The US Dollar currency might also be seen as a problem to a backpacker since the prices are much higher than in Vietnam, and it’s almost impossible to bargain for anything. In Vietnam, you might be bargaining for 10cents but it’s possible, here the prices are fixed, 4USD are 4USD.
Apart from monetary issues and the mass tourism, the paradisiac beaches in Koh Rong are famous for having Sandflies which might turn your stay in Paradise a living hell and you can’t always be relaxed on the beach. It’s not just a myth as you hear of that there might be sandflies. At my hostel, a Brazilian guy and his sister had their backs filled with skin rashes, that the owner promptly said they were not due to bed bugs (which is quite often an issue) but from the Long Beach’s sand.
personal points
Decided to try a famous Party Hostel in Siem Reap to see how crazy it was, ended up staying 2 entire days in the hostel without leaving it, joined the drinking games, got drunk, a lot of fun, but at the end had no time to visit Siem Reap at all and found out there were people already for 10 days in the hostel that still hadn’t visited the temples. So, I guess for a different trip it might be cool, but for me it was too much, to stay in a place for 2 days, drinking, I can do it in my hometown, I don’t need to come all the way across the world for that.
Bought a tour with the hostel to Angkor Wat, buying the full day ticket and only having a half day tour, in a hurry, with a guide that didn’t speak proper English. He mainly didn’t speak English at all.
In Koh Rong Samloem, at a small party on my last evening before going to Myanmar, I had the great decision to take a boat at midnight that was supposedly going to see the bio-luminescent phytoplankton. What really happened was, the group with who I was with saw a lot of people entering a boat and thought they were gonna see the plankton.
Since I hadn’t seen it before on a tour I specifically did for that I decided to join. Stupidly I didn’t ask anybody where the boat was going and ended up in Koh Rong. It was the last boat to the Party Island, and with no option of coming back, I literally had to kneel down and beg on the floor for a captain to take me back. Finally, I could find one and paid him 30 USD. All by the mistake of not asking twice where the boat was going. Lost a cool party and almost lost my flight and boat.
near DEATH EXPERIENCE
Finally, what could have been an amazing overall experience in the islands of Cambodia nearly turned into my death!
I’m talking about one specific ferryboat company that operates between Sihanoukville and the islands. It’s called BUVA SEA.
If you’re not like me and you really enjoy almost death experiences, than Buva Sea, is the best company you can choose!
On the morning of my last day, I had to take the boat from Koh Rong Samloem to Sihanoukville and then a bus to the airport of Phnom Penh to go to Myanmar. Unfortunately the sea that day was really rough so my boat was canceled but the 2nd boat on the schedule wasn’t.
The small setbacks were, it was one boat for the double of the people (the ones from the 1st boat and the new ones), there were not enough life jackets or seating places, I ended up sitting on the step that leads to the captain’s chair together with another girl and the sea was STILL ROUGH!
I can’t say exactly how big the waves were but as soon as we got onto the 2nd set of waves the boat got hit by one that completely soaked the luggage of the people that couldn’t fit it inside the compartments and on the wave after I can swear the nose of the boat went under the wave because the entire wave entered the boat and me and the girl were swiped over to the middle of the boat, completely soaked, all our belongings, electronics, passports, etc.
At this point, people started puking, screaming, crying and having panic attacks. The boat stunk and we had to endure 30 more minutes of it until we arrived. Throughout the whole event, the captain was laughing every time a wave entered the boat, there were babies and old people on board and everybody feared for their lives.
On Tripadvisor and similar agencies, Buva Sea has a 1-2 stars rating, with other people having similar experiences, I completely discourage this company.
These are the reasons behind the title.
Despite the setbacks, I sincerely loved the experience in Cambodia and I think it deserves a 2nd chance.
What do you think? Would love to hear your advises!
Do you have similar experiences? Should I try it again?
The Portuguese Traveler
