Sihanoukville is a province in southwest Cambodia known for its beaches, tropical islands and the mangrove jungles of Ream National Park. Set around a deep-water port on a peninsula jutting into the Gulf of Thailand, the provincial capital of Sihanoukville is lined with palm-fringed beaches, seafood restaurants and late-night bars. Overlooking the capital is the hilltop Buddhist temple of Wat Leu. Thanks to a surrounding coastline of white-sand beaches this is Cambodia's most happening sun-sloth destination. Named in honor of the then head-of-state, Sihanoukville (Kong Preah Sihanouk; also known as Kompong Som) was hacked out of the jungle in the late 1950s to create Cambodia's first and only deep-water port, strategically vital because it meant that the country's international trade no longer had to pass through Vietnam's Mekong Delta.