Sinoukeville is holidaying Cambodia's primary beach spot. With sweeping beaches and a well developed tourist infrastructure it's a town heavily shaped by tourism. And it's not all good, the touristy strip around Serendipity beach is not somewhere you visit for a touch of tropical paradise but offers a big night out. Lines of rickety establishments, squeezing ever closer, and a litter strewn beach.
Around Serendipity are the concentration of Cambodias dive shops, and offshore the true tropical paradises of the surrounding islands offer the real draw.
We chose to stay down at Otres beach. A $4 tuk tuk ride from Serendipity, far quieter and cleaner. After a scout about we ended up in Done right bungalows. Little concrete igloos remeniscent of the opening scenes in Star Wars. Light and airy and featuring friendly and chatty staff a great option. Food here was also tasty and in generous portions, with tasty Swedish dishes alongside local fare, due to Swedish owners. You even got a portion of Lingonberry to go with the rosti which made us happy. Small things after two months of rice.
After a few days of relaxing here, including some additional hammock time we decided to sample some Cambodian Scuba. After serious deliberation Em decided to join the dive trip but only as a snorkler. She is contemplating the full Open Water Padi course but wanted a bit more time to consider. We chose an overnight trip with 5 dives for me and some good snorkeling for Em. Scuba nation was our choice of operator, Cambodia's oldest, and with a good reputation.
The trip itself proved excellent. Not knowing how Cambodia's diving would measure up I was pleasantly suprised. Dives were fairly shallow, 5-16m, but packed in great condition corals, huge barrel sponges and a profusion of marine life. With a mild current running most dives had a pleasant drift feel, the shallow depth, and lack of effort required allowing long 1hr plus dives covering a lot of ground. Notable marine life presences for me included some not spotted on my Thai dives, many blue spotted rays and Barracuda. A big pair of 1.5m lenght particularly impressive. A coral cat shark was also a new sight for me.
Em also spotted some barracuda snorkelling as well as a wealth of new fish for her including inquisative bat fish and friendly remora which would detach from the boat and latch onto a diver or snorkeller. Tickly and a bit of a suprise when you didn't expect something to suddenly latch to your back.
I was also lucky to get a night dive in. As the only certified diver on the boat, I was joined by the instructor and a dive master. With a stong current now racing through this was challenging to start, juggling a torch and just trying to stay close to the guys in the current for the first 5 minutes. After flying over the edge of the reef at a rate of knots trying not to get urchined, the spiny critters were everywhere, like cartoon sea mines waiting for the unwary, we ducked around the point of the island and into slack water. A great dive. Phosporescence and small shrimp everywhere.
Overall whilst Cambodian diving would probably not rank with the worlds best it is certainly well comparable with Thailand, perhaps the more flung Similan islands diving aside, with better condition reefs, fewer divers and less overfishing impact. Vis was a perfectly acceptable 6-10m. As a bonus it was also slightly cheaper than Thailand.
With diving over with it was now time to say goodbye to the sea and beaches and strike out inland. With the hot season in full swing a cooling dip will definately be missed.
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