Shihanuk Ville(Kompong Som Province)

Shihanuk Ville

Sihanouk Ville is a coastal city that is collated 235 km southwest of Phnom Penh. It can be reached by National Road No 4. The Cambodian seaside paradise can be visited all year round.
Its charm results from a harmonious combination of undulation mountain, tropical islands, translucent seawater, glittering sand, swaying palms, tourist spots, and an international seaport, along with a mild climate and a cooling breeze.
The tranquil water is perfect for relaxing after tiring visits to Angkor, swimming in the evening through the phosphorescent water that gleams like diamonds, and sunbathing on the white sandy beach. Watching the sunset along the coast is the perfect ending to the day. If you want to see beautiful natural scenery and breathe clean fresh air and enjoy extraordinarily delicious seafood, Sihanouk Ville has it all. There is a wide variety of accommodation and restaurants available at a reasonable price.
It takes about 4 hours to journey from Phnom Penh to Sihanouk Ville on a comfortable luxury air-conditioned bus. You will enjoy the wonderful view of mountains, forests and valleys along the road, all of which will make your journey an unforgettable one.

In a land with thousands of years of history, Sihanoukville is a colorful but tragic upstart. A mere fifty years ago, a French-Cambodian construction carved a camp out of the jungle and started building the first deep-sea port of a newly independent Cambodia. Named Sihanoukville in 1964 after the ruling prince of Cambodia, the booming port and its golden beaches soon drew Cambodia's jetsetting elite, spawning the first Angkor Beer brewery and the modernist seven-story Independence Hotel which, claim locals, even played host to Jacqueline Kennedy on her whirlwind tour of Cambodia in 1967.
Alas, the party came to an abrupt end in 1970 when Sihanouk was deposed in a coup and Cambodia descended into civil war. The town – renamed Kompong Som – soon fell on hard times: the victorious Khmer Rouge used the Independence Hotel for target practice and, when they made the mistake of hijacking an American container ship, the port was bombed by the U.S. Air Force. Even after Pol Pot's regime was driven from power, the bumpy highway to the capital was long notorious for banditry and the beaches stayed empty.

Peace returned in 1997 and in the ensuing ten years Sihanoukville has been busy picking up the pieces. First visited only by a few intrepid backpackers, guidebooks still talk of walls pockmarked by bullets, but any signs of war are hard to spot in today's Sihanoukville, whose new symbol seems to be the construction site. After 30 years of housing only ghosts, the Independence Hotel is up and running again, more and more Khmers and expats have settled down to run bars and restaurants, and the buzz of what the New York Times dubbed "Asia's next trendsetting beach" is starting to spread far and wide.