Cambodia upgrades coastal links
July 7, 2016 by Don Ross

SIHANOUKVILLE, 7 July 2016: Cambodia will improve transport links in the country as it extends the reach of its tourism industry to include coastal resorts in Preah Sihanoukville province.

Commenting on extending tourism to the coastal region, south of the capital Phnom Penh, Ministry of Tourism secretary of state, Tith Chantha, said highways, ferry services and air links would be improved to position Sihanoukville as the main coastal gateway.

He was commenting diversifying tourism beyond the traditional cultural destinations on the sidelines of the Mekong Tourism Forum, Wednesday.

“Yes, the five-hour drive from the capital to Sihanoukville is daunting,” he admitted, “but the government plans to build a new highway from Phnom Penh and improvements will be made to highways 4 and 3.”

Currently it takes five to six hours to cover the 251 km distance from the capital to the coastal port of Sihanoukville on highway 4 that urgently needs to be widened and repaired...
http://www.ttrweekly.com/site/2016/07/c ... tal-links/

Interesting, but there can't be a more direct link to Sihanoukville given that the Bokor and Cardamon ranges are in the way.

A 4 lane dual carriageway would be much appreciated

An expressway similar to the ones in Vietnam would be nice. Still, there are only two ways there: south of Bokor or around Pech Nil... They could build an expressway from capital to Pech Nil, but that's it. Might cut one hour to one hour and a half from the trip. The best would have been to do a total overhaul of the rail system, but that has never appeared to be very high on the agenda of the short-sighted Dear Leaders.

because upgrading does not line their pockets with as much money as building new stuffs

It wouldn't matter how many lanes there were because they would all be filled with slow, overloaded trucks and every sort of contraption.