We made our way to Otres Beach 2 which is a small part of the Sihanoukville area that thankfully hasn’t yet been developed by the locals and Chinese. We found some locally owned bungalows and a little strip of maybe 15 accommodations with beachside bars and restaurants – bliss!
From here we had a great snorkelling day tour stopping at Bamboo Island and Koh Kiev for some snorkelling in the turquoise blue water and then cliff jumping (well some of us jumped of the cliff anyway – if you zoom in you can see me against the cliff).
Otres 2 beach itself was lovely, warm shallow water on a long sandy beach. It was only after high water that random rubbish could be found washed up. The locals must clean the beach each morning to keep it pristine. We met a couple of Germans (Sandro and Hurcule) who walked the whole way along the beach to Sihanoukville who said that the rubbish in other non-resort parts was awful. So sad to see this everywhere!
As we headed to Sihanoukville it was really sad to see everywhere becoming really built up for tourists, there are even some really big high rise Chinese hotels and casinos popping up. Often these places have a private beach so slowly more and more of the beautiful coastline becomes unavailable to locals and visitors. The Chinese have even bought part of the close by national park and are developing a resort there – what a shame that is being allowed! Who knows what this area of coast and national park will look like in a few years’ time. I feel glad that we have come here now and don’t think I’ll want to return in years to come.
