While doing a motorbike tour in the Bolaven plateau we were planning to stay at this place, also based on the positive reviews on Tripadvisor. Usually I go by the principle that I only say something if I have something positive to say. But in this case I make an exeption, based on the extremely disappointing experience we had at the Sinouk Resort.
The arrival was already strange, at best. Driving down the entrance there were no signs of the reception, so we guessed it had to be somewhere close to the restaurant. The restaurant itself was closed (at 4pm, while the sign at the road said it was open all-day) and some workers inside were fixing the ceiling/lamps. In order to do so they stood on the tables without taking off their shoes. In front of the restaurant, there were several women (all of them wearing a shirt or jacket with the Sinouk Resort logo) sitting on the ground counting money and doing their children's hair. When they saw us parking our bikes and walking towards the restaurant they pointed in our direction and started giggling. None of them made any effort to get up or welcome us. Only after walking by them and stepping into the restaurant/reception one of the women came running behind us and asked our name and whether we had a reservation. The restaurant/reception itself looked dark, dodgy and unclean. We then asked where to park the bikes and the "receptionist" pointed into a difficult-to-interpret direction next to the kitchen entrance (which was also next to the garbage dump) without giving more precise indications. Funny enough there was also a worker fixing a garden post with a chainsaw, and he made no effort to interrupt his work for us to ease the parking of the bikes. After putting our bikes where we were told, the "receptionist" came running towards us again, still giggling and asking if we were now ready for her to show us to our room. Another fairly strange move. Inside the room she handed us over the keys, made a remark about the opening hours of the restaurant (breakfast: 7 to 8.30am, dinner: 7 to 8.30pm [?!]) and left without any additional statement. The room itself was dodgy with a moist smell, the window had been left open (probably in an effort to get the moist out of the room) which resulted in a significant number of mosquitos already flying inside the room. This was also supported by the half-broken mosquito net outside the window. To close the window I then had to step on the tiny balcony, which proved to be difficult given that the balcony door could hardly be opened. Also the room door and windows were not airtight at all. The walls of the room were paper thin and the floor as well as the furniture were covered with dust. We were already quite puzzled about the entire scenery and decided to grab a snack (potato chips and some dry cookies was all we could get) and walk around the garden. Unfortunately the disappointment went on. There were empty plastic bottles lying between coffee-/banana trees, the cushions of the restaurant's terrace were moldy and torn and the lower pond was only filled half way with water giving it a very unpleasant look. In order to get in touch with our tour guide for the next day I then asked for the Wifi-code to get access to the internet. The "receptionist" informed me that the Wifi was broken for the last three days already and she did not know by when it would work again, but she told me that her boss (which was nowhere to be seen) was about to fix it, which made here giggling again. When stepping out of the reception again I noticed a biting smell of burnt material in the air and was shocked to see that the hotel-staff was burning trash in the frontyard of the hotel, about 20 meters away from our room (bearing in mind the not-airtight doors and windows, the smell must have gone directly into our room). This was the point when we were so shocked about the entire situation (considering we would have had to pay 70 [!] USD for the room) that we decided not to stay at this unwelcoming place and leave instantly, hoping to find some nicer place somewhere down the road (which we did indeed). In more than 20 years of travelling round the world I have never been so disappointed about a place like I have been at the Sinouk Resort.