Lily's Beach Bungalows, Bar & Restaurant — Hotel in Koh Rong

Please read my honest review before booking at this resort. I must stress that this isn’t a matter of good or bad- simply that this resort is NOT YET FINISHED and should not be receiving guests. The reason for this is this - the road literally finishes 10/15 minutes before the resort. At this point, they come to pick you up on a motorbike (in my case, one of us had to wait in the middle of nowhere as we could only go one by one). You are then subjected to a dangerous off road journey, crossing old wooden planks, deep puddles of water, muddy slippery roads. Absolutely terrifying and thank god I didn’t come with my 8 year old son 🤦🏻‍♀️ To make it worse, none of this is communicated to you before your arrival. So it’s all a ‘surprise.’ And the owners think that it’s completely ok to do this to people. God help anyone with kids. If this was in any other country they would be instantly shut down. So I arrived at this resort in shock and confusion. It seems to be run by a khmer guy and his French girlfriend, Amber. There wasn’t much of a greeting when I arrived, I was just left wandering around. I found amber and (patiently and politely at things point) I expressed my shock at how they are bringing guests to the resort. She seemed shocked that I was shocked !! And had quite a bad attitude- no acknowledgement, compassion or apology. For food, they have a menu and they bring it from a nearby village because (surprise surprise) their restaurant also isn’t finished. So you eat out of take away boxes 😳 The next thing that you must be WARNED about here is that Lilly’s beach bungalows is completely isolated on lonely beach. There literally is nothing else on this north beach of the island AND coming and going proved to be a very difficult escapade. Again, none of this is made clear in the description of the resort. I love nothing more than having a beach to myself, but if I’m at complete mercy to this one resort then I believe it should be made clearer to me when booking. So I decided to cut my stay short from 5 nights to 2 and enjoy some quiet time with my boyfriend and just embrace where we ended up. On the plus- the beach bungalows are all newly built and are very nice. Comfy mattresses and pillows and it’s all very clean. Next big WARNING that they didn’t communicate to us which you need to know is - their room fan runs on solar, therefore you get an hour, maybe 2 of it. And there’s no shower in the bathroom, just a bum gun and a large bucket of water. This pushed me to my limits. I’ve lived in Cambodia for 10 years and having a working fan in my room is a very basic necessity. I therefore decided to check out that very morning as it was all getting too much. At this point, Amber showed her true lack of customer service skills and tried to make us pay for the night that we decided not to stay AND she then imposed $15 for the death ride to the resort which was supposed to be free. She also told us that we would need to pay another $15 if we wanted to leave. Honestly, it felt as if we were being held hostage for being bad customers. Or as she put it ‘not nice.’ Yes Amber, people aren’t very nice when they are subjected to such ridiculousness and when you can’t take any responsibility for it. They got very angry at me and told me nobody had complained before. This resort shouldn’t be allowed to be open until it’s properly finished. They will learn the hard way. I hope this review can prepare people for the reality of...

The tuktuks will drop you on a dirt road for $15 (from Longset), and then you have to hike a good 20 minutes with your bags on a road that gets muddy when it rains. Some sections are not really walkable in shoes, so you have to take them off. The beach and the property are really pretty and super secluded. We only saw a few other people during our stay, but the weather was not great, so that most likely contributed.

The staff at the restaurant were super friendly, and the food ranged from okay to delicious. The bungalows were minimal. The bucket shower sounded like a great idea, but with the bad weather, it was not that fun. We were kind of afraid of getting cold. The bungalows have no electricity, and there is no Wi-Fi, which sounds fun at first, but with the bad weather, you’re kind of stuck with limited options here.

Due to the weather and a plankton bloom, the underwater visibility was nonexistent. I tried to swim around a bit but did not see any sign of a reef; the area is mostly covered with large rocks and algae. I only saw some soft corals. (I had much better success at Koh Touch Island and saw some good signs at Police Beach, but the visibility was also bad there.)

The beach had a lot of trash, dead fish, etc., which was most likely the result of the storms. The staff cleaned it from time to time, but it came back quickly.

If you come here, bring some mosquito repellent because there are a lot of them. We also had an unfortunate incident at the end. The sign on the porch said to leave your shoes outside of the bungalows, and one of the dogs took my shoe from the porch and went away with it (there are several dogs roaming the area). When I asked the guy running the place, he just kind of shrugged and said the neighbor’s dogs sometimes steal shoes and that he is planning to poison them. This did not sit well with us on several levels: first, the animal abuse, and secondly, the nonchalance. That was a new shoe and my only one on the trip. I have pretty big feet, so the chances of finding another easily were slim. Also, if they know this happens, then why the sign? We eventually found the shoe, but it was not easy—we had to go to the other beach through the lagoon, getting all wet, etc.

There is some more assistance if you stay 3+ days, like they carry your baggage and arrange pickup, etc. We only stayed 2 nights, so we did not get those benefits. The restaurant on the other beach also feels a little bit abandoned; we were the only guests there and did not see any tourists staying in the area.

We have stayed in “nomad” and secluded places before; maybe we just found our limit regarding the matter. We really wanted to love this place, but we left with mixed feelings and most likely would not return. Of course, they can’t do anything about the weather, but it just felt like it wasn’t worth the price...

Restaurant top, Bungalows noch nicht auf dem Stand um das Geld wert zu sein. Ich würde als Tagesgast nochmal kommen, aber nicht mehr dort übernachten, solange der Komfort nicht steigt.

Das Restaurant ist sehr gut, Gerichte sind sehr lecker, wobei die Portionen größer sein könnten. Das Personal ist sehr freundlich. Die Lage ist traumhaft, man schaut direkt auf das Meer und den Strand, im Gegensatz zum Restaurant von Lonely Beach Bungalows. Außerdem ist es noch dazu preiswerter als letzteres.

Die Bungalows sind einfacher als sie sein müssten! Ein paar Hacken für eine Garderobe und wenigstens ein Brett als Ablage im Badezimmer würde den Komfort schon massiv erhöhen. Ich habe einen Kulturbeutel mit Haken, um ihn aufzuhängen falls es keine Ablage gibt. Doch da es nicht einmal Haken gibt, halft das auch nicht. Es gibt keine Dusche, sondern eine Tonne mit Eimer. Ein Stück längeres Rohr nach oben und schon wäre eine einfache Dusche geschaffen. Das Wasser aus dem Wasserhahn ist ein Rinnsal. Dementsprechend wenig Druck hat auch die WC Dusche, also quasi unbrauchbar. Die Matratze ist nicht besonders bequem, man spürt die Metallfedern durch. Man kann zwar die Türe zusperren, wenn man selber ein Schloss mitbringt, aber die Fenster lassen sich trotzdem öffnen. Die größte Komforteinbusse ist wohl das Fehlen von Elektrizität. Es gibt zwar Licht, aber keinen Strom um Handy oder sonstige Dinge zu laden. Dementsprechend gibt es auch keinen Ventilator und in der Nacht ist es sehr heiß. Das wusste ich alles nicht, als ich gebucht habe. Nur der Eigentümer selbst hat bei seinem Bungalow eine Autobatterie, die mit einem Solarpanel geladen wird. Wenn man fragt kann man dort sein Handy und seine Powerbank laden. Bei mir war es aber bewölkt und somit war die Autobatterie am Abend schnell leer. Steckdosen waren in meinem Bungalow übrigens vorhanden, aber führten keinen Strom. Wahrscheinlich kommt das in Zukunft noch.

Ich habe mir bei diesem Preis mehr erwartet und würde nicht noch einmal kommen. Ich finde den Preis von aktuell (Februar 2025) 25$ pro Nacht absolut überzogen für das, was man bekommt. Das kann man vielleicht verlangen, wenn die erwähnten Dinge umgesetzt sind.

Die Lage ist natürlich traumhaft, aber die kann man gemeinsam mit dem Restaurant auch genießen ohne dort zu übernachten.

Anreise: Mit Motorrad kein Problem, wenn man sich zutraut über die sandigen Wege zu fahren. Nicht geeignet für Leute, die erst zum zweiten Mal auf einem...