Kampot

We spent a little time while in Siem Reap chatting with expats who are long-time Cambodia residents.  We talked about how tourism changes places, and how Siem Reap has changed with increased tourist traffic (exhibit 1: Pub Street).  Ellen wanted to end our trip with a few days relaxing at a beach so we were looking at the Cambodian coast.  Our friends recommended Kampot as a great example of what Cambodia used to be.  It's near the coast so we decided to give it a try.

It was a long 3.5 hours jammed like sardines in a small bus from Phnom Penh to Kampot.  We took a tuk-tuk to the Our House Bungalows.  Although we reserved this spot somewhat blind, it turned out to be great.  It's located on a quiet street with a few houses and a mostly (for now) empty lots, but only about 15 minutes walk from the action in the center of town.  Our little bungalow has a small kitchen and living room, plus a separate large bedroom.  Very nice gardens and grounds, and exceptionally friendly and helpful staff.

We enjoyed chatting with some of the other guests.  There were two German women (one of whom lives in Shanghai, and with the coronavirus wasn't sure about flying back to her job).  We also hung out a bit with Frank and Shaheer, two young men (from the US and UK) who had met teaching in Kuwait.

Kampot is clearly on the SE Asia backpacker circuit.  It's a great place to fall of the grid and live the easy life on very little money.  The downtown area is full of little restaurants and bars, mostly geared toward a younger international crowd.  It also seems to be on the brink of change.  We saw some new construction activity: mid-size hotels in the city center and houses on the periphery.  I expect it will be a very different vibe within five years.

We spent our first day just walking around and getting to know the city.  We found a couple of interesting art galleries showing work by local artists.  There are restaurants with every kind of food, even a good French boulangerie and an excellent bakery run by a man from Bolzano Italy.  We shared slices of Sacher Torte and strudel from the latter, both of which were outstanding.

Ellen inside an art installation

This region has been an established site for pepper growing since the 13th century, and Kampot specifically has been known since the days of French occupation (late 19th century onward) as a source of great pepper.  Production stopped during the Khmer Rouge era, but in recent years several large pepper plantations have grown up in the surrounding countryside.

It's about a 45 minute ride to the pepper plantations, so we decided to rent a motorbike for the trip.  Renting a motorbike here was a little more formalized than at the Nguyen Shack near Ninh Binh.  The hotel desk wrote down my name, and held onto my passport until the bike was returned.   The rental agreement included the following: "How to start Move the steel up, open key then take the break and click starter."  Translation: To start the engine, lift up the kickstand, turn the key to on, squeeze the left brake handle, and then press the start button.

Getting to the pepper plantation was a bit of adventure.  One of the dirt roads our hotel recommended we take still had large puddles from recent rain, and after feeling the tires slide around a bit on the slick mud I decided to turn around.  We found another dirt road, all dried out, and took that one instead.

La Plantation is run by a French couple on about 50 acres of land.  In addition to the pepper farm, they grow some other products (everything is certified organic), and they also have restaurants, cooking classes, and a tasting area.  After our tour we tasted about a dozen different varieties of pepper, and bought a few to bring home.

We stopped for a little lunch at this tiny restaurant by Secret Lake on the way back.

Kitchen helpers of both the canine and feline persuasions

Next day we decided to explore up-river from Kampot.  There are a number of places to stay along the river and we wanted to check them out.  We spent a little time hanging out at Meraki, which had been recommended to us by a couple of people.  There are a few bamboo bungalows, an outdoor bar, lots of grass and play areas, and not much else.  It's an extremely chill spot, and counter-culture central: I don't think we saw anyone there older than our kids.  

We rented a kayak nearby to paddle the Green Loop which follows a couple of slow-moving rivers through the jungle.  Along the route we passed several spots with new construction activity.

Afterward we enjoyed a little snack at the riverside restaurant where we'd rented our kayaks.  Plenty of locals were enjoying the weekend there as well.

When we returned to our bungalow at the end of the afternoon, our host noticed that the front tire of our motorbike was soft.  We topped it off with a bike pump, but by morning it was soft again.  We pumped it up and I rode a short distance to a tire shop.  I used Google Translate to show the young man there the problem.  He came back with a squirt bottle of soapy water and poured it on the still-mounted tire until he found the leak.  He then hand inserted a rubber plug, trimmed the rubber on the outside with a knife, and that was it.  The whole process took about three minutes, and cost 3000 riel (75 cents).

We had planned to make a day excursion to Kep Beach and nearby Koh Tonsay (Rabbit Island), but we were enjoying our time around Kampot and never worked up sufficient motivation for the trip.  Instead, we spent our third day exploring by motorbike on the other side of the river.  There are quite a few river-front bungalow compounds.  Several km upstream from town there is an area of rapids on the river, but in this dry season the river is too low.

We also checked out the area along the river in town where boats leave for nightly sunset cruises, but decided to pass.

After showering off at our bungalow we walked back into town for happy pizza (which worked better than expected) and watched the sun set over the river.  Even though we never made it to the ocean, we very much enjoyed spending a few relaxing days in Kampot.  Next morning we took a more comfortable bus back to Phnom Penh for the last little bit of our trip.