Sihanoukville, Cambodia D86-97: Serendipity & Otres

We took a minibus from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville for $9 per person. We asked some English blokes in the car what they paid... those suckas paid $10! We heard that others had paid $20. You'll never find the price of a transportation ticket posted unless it's a major ripoff; watch out for opportunists and know that every price is negotiable! 

The ride took about 4.5 hours on a fairly decent two-lane road. If you take this trip, know that you'll just be passing trucks and motorbikes the whole time, weaving, honking and playing leapfrog with other commuters. My advice is: don't watch!

We arrive at the "bus station" around 10PM and have to take a tuk-tuk the rest of the way to the beach. The drivers want $3 a person for a mile-long tuk, which seems insane since we just paid $9 for a 4.5 hour bus ride. The tuk drivers in Sihanoukville capitalize on the fact that the area isn't safe, and figure we're probably too dumb to know we're getting ripped off. The drivers here are part of a mafia, and they have decided that no rides will be less than $2 no matter how close the destination is. We bargain them down to $3 in total, and head to Serendipity Road. (We hear the English blokes settle for the $3 per person rate. Haggle, bros!)

Looking at Serendipity Beach from our hotel balcony on Serendipity Road

Serendipity Beach is the most populated beach in Sihanoukville. The length of the beach is lined with bars and unfancy restaurants. Touts are the worst on this beach- they are aggressive and VERY personal. Time after time a woman would approach me, ask if I'd like a massage, and when I'd say no, they'd grab my hands, look me in the eye and tell me, "When you're ready, you look for me, OK? You promised to see me, OK? Look for me, NO ONE ELSE." And if by some chance one of the ladies who already gave me this pep-talk saw another woman try to talk to me, she would approach me and yell "You already promised MEEEE!" and they would start to fight over me... though I had no intention of ever getting a massage in the first place. AVOID if you succumb to peer pressure! I literally got hissed at when I walked away.

Along with the aggressive women touts, unaccompanied children constantly roam the beaches. Some of the kids look to be as young as three years old, pounding the pavement with their siblings. The children usually travel in groups, and the leader is almost always an aggressive 14 year-old girl. One fiery pre-teen started to hassle me and I almost bought something from her out of  sheer fear. Girlfriend dealt better side-eye than Regina George herself. 

The child gangs sell braided bracelets, and they approach your personal space with more confidence than a front door Mormon (a front doorMon). They'll probably get your money even if you don't buy anything, as they're masterful pick-pockets. We felt hands on our legs and pockets as they circled around us. Grip your belongings tight. 

A few years ago I bought a bracelet from one of these kids and was immediately scolded by a hotel worker who was looking on. Buying anything from the children keeps them out of school and working on the streets. They either become criminals or victims of abuse, and the man at the hotel told me I encouraged that by buying a bracelet. I was so embarrassed.

If it hasn't come across yet- Serendipity Beach is scummy, but a good place to rage. It's sketchy during the day and completely debauched at night. The parties can be heard from inside any luxury resort even off the strip. You can buy any drug and any type of girl here.

We stayed three nights in Serendipity. The food has improved a lot in the last few years, but the prices have definitely gone up. While you can still find dorm-style rooms for as low as $5 per night (no AC or hot water, shared bathroom), you can't find as many mid-range options. You're either going to pay $5-$15 per night, or $55-75. We rewarded ourselves for living through another bout of food poising by staying in a $55/night place.

After three days we headed to Otres Beach, AKA your screensaver. It is literally what heaven must look like, minus Chris Farley and a chocolate fondue fountain.

http://www.isihanoukville.com/otres-beach4.html

 

Otres Beach is a 4km stretch of white sand and peace. It is much less developed and much, much, much quieter than Serendipity Beach. The water is clear and warm and mostly calm. The sand is soft. It's amazing. 

We stay one night (one night too many) at the "Castaways Bungalows". Upon arrival to our bungalow, we see trash left inside from the previous occupants, their towels are hung behind the door and there's even waste left in the toilet. Lucky us. We go to flush the toilet... it doesn't work. We tell the manager and he stops shooting pool just long enough to say "maybe someone come fix it tomorrow or something," completely nonchalant. He gives us "fresh"? towels and doesn't take the other ones.

The place sucked! The shower water smelled like sewage, the mosquito net had huge holes in it, and rats riffled through our stuff at night, so much so that we had to sleep with the light on.

This is a Fake Smile - Don't Stay Here

The next day we upgraded to Penguin Pablo, beautiful bungalows just a block from the beach, ran by Italian expat Stephano. The location is a downside (spoiled, I know, but it wasn't beach-front), but everything else was wonderful. It was $55 a night, outrageous for this side of the world, but at least it's clean, the bathroom works and we even had A/C.

In one of Stephano's amazing soliloquies-- for he didn't speak with you, he lovingly spoke at you-- he professed his frustration and sorrow for the future of Otres. He told us about Japanese businessmen coming to town to mark territories and plan big business ventures. He vented about it being lawless in many ways: there are no noise or building restrictions, bad quality products rejected from industrialized countries come to Cambodia, two competing Russian mafias "own" the majority of the beach town and their spats end in car bombs and shootouts, etc. He literally said "It's the wild wild west out here."

It was on Otres beach where I finally buckled to a woman tout, who ran her hand up my leg and said "Oh! So hairy!" She shamed me into getting my legs threaded. When she asked for $10 I quickly countered $8, and she instantly agreed meaning I was a sucker. IT HURT! Getting your leg hairs plucked out one by one (especially around the ankles) is something I wish on no one. I clenched my teeth the entire twenty minutes procedure  In the end, the job wasn't exactly thorough and the legs weren't very smooth. The lady was sweet, though, and gave me real pieces of aloe use on my legs to help with the burn.


After my grooming, we decide to take a dip. At first we saw what looked like clear brains scattered on the shoreline. Not impossible... Upon further inspection, we saw they were dead, washed-up jellyfish. In the water we see what looked like bits of plastic floating around us. More clear jellyfish. 

We walked farther to wade in the water in time to see a herd  of blue jellys coming our way. I saw the pack first, turned to Ian and yelled "RUN!!" and booked it out of there. The amount of jellyfish in the water could only be described as plague-like. Ian grabbed his phone and dared to re-enter to take this pic:

I looked it up and I found out we were incredibly unlucky with our timing. These herds of jellyfish make an appearance once a year: in April, the week after the full moon. We were there in that exact time frame. Needless to say, we didn't swim much that day. But I did t go home empty-handed! In the two minutes I was in the water, before seeing the jellyfish, I managed to get a little sting:

For the next few days, we rented a motorbike and spent our time between Otres and Serendipity, which are about five miles apart. In the morning we would go to Otres Beach to swim carefully around jellys and lay out, and in the heat of the afternoon we would head to Serendipity where they had a "movie theater" we could cool off in. I highly recommend  Top Cat Cinema, a set of private rooms with air conditioning, couches and a big screen monitor. They have every illegally-downloadable movie in their library and you pay by the hour. We spent many 100-degree hours in there. 

Between the beaches we see little glimpses of the towns that were built before the circus. The juxtaposition of new money and old poverty is stark and eye-opening.

New waterpark being built, surrounded by shacks

On one of our motorbike outings we saw a man and a woman fighting with another man in the street. They were fist-fighting until one man bent down and picked up a rock the size of a football and threw it at the other man's head. We didn't stick around to see how that played out. Lawless, indeed.

By the way, the cops extremely corrupt and nowhere to be found when actually needed. The only time we saw the police is while driving our motorbike. An officer walked in the middle of the road to stop us, and we find out we're essentially pulled over for being white. We're asked to "pay the fine". We ask if we did anything wrong, and he smiles and says "No, just pay the fine." We give him five dollars and we're on our way. The next time a cop tried to pull us over, Ian just drove away. They're too lazy to come after us. We do this a few more times. Just call us BRonnie & CRyde.

TL,DR: Beware of touts, children and police officers. Party in Serendipity and relax in Otres. 

Ian's Favorite Thing shadowing My Least Favorite Thing