Further north in the coast, the area around Sihanoukville is being spoiled by property investors speculating with the coastal terrains, constructing resorts and privatising beaches, since tourism is proving the industry of the future. We were expecting to find hordes of tourists and Khmer families enjoying the beaches and massive tourist development all around the area, but we got such a nice surprise once we arrived there.
The south coast of Cambodia is blessed with tropical white sand beaches, little islands, small fishing communities and national parks. It is a good place to relax, after being in the stressing city of Phnom Penh. It is also visited by very little number of tourists, since development here is very low at the moment.
According to the normal pattern, the capital of a country is the busiest and most modern city of the nation. This happens again in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The streets are noisy, dirty and polluted because of the high concentration of vehicles -private cars, tuk tuks, taxis, big motorbikes, mopeds, buses, truks and many more- which also makes to cross the road a pretty dangerous action, since everybody drive as they please –with red light, in the wrong sense of the road or on the pedestrian zones-. We haven’t had any problem with the traffic so far, but have had to stand in the middle of the road more than once, waiting for the vehicles to stop at the red traffic light. We have spent many hours wandering around town and have suffered from the fumes until our lungs could feel it. Now, from a smoke free area in an internet cafe our throat is getting better but, in case we come back to this city, we will consider to wear this surgical masks that many locals do wear.
Our third destination in the country was Siem Reap, the closest town –around 6 km- to the ancient temple ruins of the reign of Angkor. The town is a secure investment place for anybody wanting to start up a tourism related business due to the proximity of Angkor Wat and the rest of the tourist sites. This is why many of the hotels and restaurants are massive and run by westeners. An example we found would be Babel Siem Reap Guest House, a highly reccommended place to stay for its clean, spacious rooms and for the new owners, a spanish, an italian and a french guy, all of them very friendly and helpful. Another recommended guest house right next would be the Good Kind Guest House, where we actually were staying and from where we arranged our visit to the Angkor area, bus tickets, etc. There was one amazing cambodian guy -Seiha- who was responsible for the guests and who made his best to accomplish their needs. Thank you very much for everything!!
Right after crossing the border, we realised that Poi Pet was not the best place to stay at for the night. Casinos, duty free shops, cars, mud everywhere and taxi and tuk-tuk touts made from it a very bad choice to spend our time, plus it was almost as expensive as any average european big city but with a half of the quality standards. Getting out of town was difficult at that time of the day -more than 8 pm- since public local transport seemed to be inexistent. After one hour of arguing and bargaining hard we arranged a shared taxi for half the price of what they were asking for at the beginning and could get to Sisophon on the same day.
After so many days enjoying the comodities of Bangkok’s tourist area, Kao San Road, we were decided to get back in the trail and move to a new country, a new language and a new culture. Our first contact with all these things, right in the gate to Cambodia was pretty awful. After having spent around 6 hours sitting in a 3rd class train and having had to hitch hike from the railway station to the border due to the abussive price of taxis and tuk-tuks, we were not expecting to be forced to face such a bad welcome from the Cambodian border authorities. Many travellers talk about it, but one never thinks it is going to be that way.
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