Tuesday, May 19, 2009

SihanoukVille, Cambodia. May 2009. Still going strong.


SihanoukVille, Cambodia's still growing as usual. Fortunately, the pace of growth has slowed.

Real estate sales have slowed down, and prices have decreased about 30%, year on year, but new hotels, guesthouses, casinos and the like continue to go up.


The SihanoukVille Port is scheduled for another multi-year expansion.
The beginnings of a railroad refurbishment should start soon.

SihanoukVille's Port has seen greatly increasing traffic of passenger cruise ships and naval ships here on R&R and goodwill tours.

Tourism has seen a slight increase, but nothing like the increases of the last several years.

A major new city within a city had it's groundbreaking in back of the Sokha Hotel complex.

Construction continues on the bridge to the Island formerly known as Snake (but almost nobody knows the new name).

The old bus station and park behind the station is well on it's way to being the tallest building in SihanoukVille.

Several new housing and condo developments are going on in and around town.

The SihanoukVille Airport still hasn't seen much activity, and gas drilling operations out in the Bay of Thailand off our shores seems to have slowed as well. Not too much information on any construction projects on the islands, but they all (most?) seem to have been leased out.

Our neighbors in Kampot, Bokor and Kep, near the Vietnam border, have also seen a lot of new projects announced, including a new port. It's only a 90 drive from SihanoukVille.

All the bridges between SihanoukVille and Koh Kong (Thailand Border) are up, and this is a beautiful ride through the mountains and jungle. Even route 4, from SihanoukVille to Phnom Penh seems to be undergoing expansion.