So here I am again on a boat, leaving Koh Ta Kiev to go to Sihanoukville.

Sihanoukville… honestly, it’s a city that makes you raise an eyebrow as soon as you arrive. Not because it is beautiful. But because it is strange. A bit like if you were landing in a video game setting still loading.

But before talking about the city… let’s talk about my little haven of peace: my hostel, Onederz.

Honestly, 10/10 without hesitation. Onederz is a very well-known hostel chain in Cambodia, with several locations (Siem Reap, Phnom Penh, Koh Rong, etc.). The idea behind the concept is simple: to offer modern, clean, and very well-designed hostels for backpackers. And they clearly understood the assignment. Here, everything is smooth. Curtains on the beds (the ultimate luxury in a dorm), air conditioning that actually works (a life-changing detail in Asia), a pool to survive the intense heat, on-site restaurant and bar, clean and lively common areas… basically everything you want when you are traveling on a reasonable budget without sacrificing comfort. It’s the kind of place where you plan to stay “just one night” and end up extending without even realizing it.

Then, Sihanoukville itself… that’s where we enter a different atmosphere.

The city experienced a massive boom a few years ago, especially with major foreign investments, particularly Chinese. Hotels, casinos, and complexes were built at an incredible speed, completely transforming the urban landscape. Then, for several economic and political reasons, a large part of these projects was abandoned or left unfinished. One of the main reasons is the tightening of Chinese regulations on capital outflows. Starting around 2019, the Chinese government began heavily restricting speculative overseas investments, especially in casinos and real estate considered too risky or linked to money laundering. Many projects in Sihanoukville were directly dependent on this fast-moving money, so when the flow partially stopped, several developments came to an abrupt halt. Then there was a political shift in Cambodia, with attempts to better control the city’s development. Authorities began re-evaluating casino licenses and tightening construction regulations, which slowed down or blocked several ongoing projects. Some companies failed to adapt to these new rules or chose to leave. On top of that, there was the COVID-19 pandemic, which delivered a major blow. With borders closed and international tourism stopped, many investments lost their immediate profitability. Casinos, hotels, and tourism-driven projects, often built on expectations of rapid growth, suddenly found themselves without customers, which pushed several developers to abandon or freeze their sites.

In the end, all of this left a city where growth happened too fast to be sustainable, where ambition outpaced reality. And today, this mix of unfinished buildings, empty structures, and transitional zones gives Sihanoukville a very particular feeling of a city suspended in time. Result today: entire streets with unfinished buildings, empty towers, abandoned construction sites, broken signs. It is hard to describe it as anything other than… it really feels like a ghost city in a post-apocalyptic video game, where something stopped right in the middle of construction.

And yet, I stopped there.

Because honestly, Sihanoukville is not a destination where there is “a lot to do.” Most travelers use it as a transit point to get to Koh Rong or the islands. But I was curious. I like seeing the places that usually get skipped on itineraries.

So I decided to stay for 24 hours.

I walked around the city, without much of a plan. And then there is this long beach that runs along part of the coastline. And there, total contrast: the noise of the city behind me, but in front of me… sand, the sea, and especially a surreal moment where I was completely alone on the beach. Truly alone. No tourist vibe, no music, nothing. Just me and the ocean. And it is often in those moments that places take on a different meaning.

Later, I met local fishermen. We exchanged a few looks, a few smiles, and they eventually invited me to follow them. They showed me how they fish, their simple but effective techniques, their completely different rhythm of life compared to mine. It was very spontaneous, very human. One of those moments where you are not “doing an activity,” you are just experiencing something.

And in the end, maybe that is what Sihanoukville is: a somewhat chaotic, slightly abandoned city, but with small fragments of authentic life that appear when you take the time to look.