Погода: Сиануквиль, декабрь

December is the dry season here, and the thing the board explains that no column can is wind direction. The northeast wind of the dry months, roughly November to May, leaves the west coast of the island calm and clear - which is where the sunsets are, and where they tell you to stay in December. Our wind column reads 25.8 kph, so it is a real wind, simply blowing off the land on that side. The rain has largely gone, 59.1mm across 10 days and mostly at night. On temperature our row runs warmer than their recollection: they say 25 to 27C, we read 30.8C reading as 34C at 71.8 percent humidity, over 23.6C nights, with a 29.4C sea. The record: 9.4 hours of sun and AQI 48.

Sihanoukville forum regulars describe August as genuine monsoon season, with rain that can hit overnight, early morning or mid-afternoon and, when it does, comes down hard for roughly an hour before clearing. One traveler who spent two weeks there in August said it only rained a handful of times, always torrential but brief, and had more sunny days than wet ones overall. The bigger risk isn't the rain itself but rougher seas - a few posters mentioned island boat trips to Koh Rong getting cancelled on choppy days, so it's worth building a spare day into any island-hopping plan.

Forum posters describe February as comfortably inside Cambodia's dry season, with beaches around Sihanoukville generally clean and calm this time of year. Posters are candid, though, that the country's tropical climate means even peak dry season isn't fully rain-free - localized afternoon or evening showers and brief thunderstorms remain possible, following a common daily pattern of a sunny morning giving way to clouding and rain later in the day. Posters treat this as a minor, short-lived interruption rather than a reason to avoid the period, with February still ranking among the better months for beach time on this coast.