Scrolling through social media over the past couple of days, I kept coming across posts about the Bole Hotel in Sihanoukville being put up for sale as a complete package. The asking price is set at $7 million, though word on the street is that the owner is willing to negotiate for a serious buyer. It is hard to wrap your head around. Back when the hotel first opened, the entrance was always packed with traffic and the lobby lights were almost blinding. Who would have thought that in just a few short years, it would end up on the bargain block?
Sihanoukville today is nothing like the crazy, hyped-up boomtown it used to be. There are far fewer workers zipping down the streets on second-hand motorbikes to get to work. The late-night barbecue joints and small eateries along the roadside have cycled through countless different signboards. Scattered across town, half-built towers sit completely stalled. Once night falls, they go pitch-black, with nothing but the sea breeze flapping loose plastic sheets against raw concrete—a quiet, eerie sight.
Talking to old hands doing business here, you hear the same sentiment again and again: things change way too fast in Sihanoukville—five years on top of the world, five years down in the dirt. When the boom hit, everything skyrocketed overnight. But once the wind died down, the crash hit harder than anyone imagined. Seven million dollars might not sound astronomical compared to the old days, but in the current climate, nobody is really sure whether this landmark of former glory will actually find a buyer willing to step in and take over.
