“I love this island,” Brian Gruber says of his new tropical home. “I can be alone when I want to be, but have everything I need at my fingertips. I take regular yoga lessons, but can also enjoy more hedonistic pleasures. The reggae bar near my home...
I wasn’t asking for much when I went in search of the perfect place to live. All I wanted was white-sand beaches giving way to crystal-clear tropical seas. For variety, I wanted a choice between a beachfront café, with mellow music playing in the background, and an empty beach where the only sounds are birds chirping and waves lapping against the shore. Oh, and the beaches had to be within easy reach of each other, and I needed to be able to live well on a small budget.
In 2007, a rough dirt road in the Cambodian beach town of Sihanoukville led to an abandoned and neglected 15-room hotel. The traffic on Serendipity Road was mainly pedestrian because the local tuk-tuk drivers often refused to travel on it. As unappealing as it looked back then, the Sea View Villa seemed like a business opportunity to a 27-year-old British backpacker, Stacy Carney.
You’re buying property in Sihanoukville? Are you crazy?” I lost count of how many times I heard those words when I decided to move to this Cambodian beach town. To my friends back home, Sihanoukville was a little-known backwater in a dangerous and unstable country. I shared their feelings until—on a whim of curiosity—I took a side trip there while traveling in Asia. I intended to spend just a few days there before moving on to Thailand.
Sihanoukville wasn’t on Joe Royle’s list of semi-retirement destinations when he came to Southeast Asia looking for a new life in 2005. In fact, he didn’t even know that Sihanoukville, a beach town of 250,000 some 140 miles southwest of Cambodia’s capital city, Phnom Penh, even existed.
My Saturday mornings usually begin with a short cycle down a quiet back road to my favourite French pâtisserie. Over a breakfast of a delicious omelette, croissant, and cappuccino, I plan my day.