Otres Beach — Attraction in Khaet Preah Sihanouk

Find out for yourself! Our cruise ship (from Hong King to Singapore) visited Sihanoukville. As our cruise company automatically charged us for visas (from the UK) we thought we may as well take the shuttle bus to the beach. This is what the negative reviews refer to... The port is a huge building site with large scale construction i.e. casino, hotels etc everywhere but with no or little thought to the infrastructure unfortunately. We travelled on an unfinished road until we reached a dirt track strewn with plastic bottles/ rubbish from the sites. Families were also living here in temporary shelters. The beach itself has suffered from the construction but is still a very nice beach with traders offering massages and a few bars with free WiFi and sunbed facilities. NOTE: our cruise offered a ‘Highlights of Sihanoukville’ excursion which could only have included the beach, statues of two gold lions on a roundabout and a temple. Needless to say they were disappointed and most...

Don´t get frauded by beautiful panoramic pics of Otres beach...Maybe it USED to be like that. This is the situation nowadays (2017/18). A bike ride from downtown Sihanoukville to Otres beach is a crash course in: environmental destruction forest depletion/ fire clearing on sold ground random waste/ garbage deposition/ environmental pollution Cambodian governmental mismanagement due to land sales to Chinese investors manic and massive hotel/ casino construction If you want to spend your vacation in garbage and construction sites instead of white sand, if you want to smell stinky, burnt and highly polluted instead of fresh air or if you want to bath in polluted waste water rather than turquoise fresh clean ocean water OR if you actually wanted to travel to China - go to Sihanoukville and get...

Used to be nice, not anymore. The beach is full of rubbish and plastic.

First and foremost, regarding the general area: Sihanoukville and Otres Beach area has been taken over by Chinese investors and developers. It was once a backpackers seaside paradise, but now most of the nice local guesthouses and restaurants have been bought up by the Chinese who have demolished lots of buildings and turned the place into a rubbish dump. This influx has also increased the prices of accommodation and food. Also it will take you hours to get anywhere as the roads are non-existant and were flooded during our stay. It's a real shame what's happening, and while we would like to support locals, sadly we would not recommend wasting a journey...