Kep & Kampot

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A four hour bus ride from Phnom Penh we arrived in Kep. From the early 1900's until the 1960's, Kep was a thriving resort town for the French and Cambodian elite. During the Khmer Rouge years, much of Kep's French colonial era mansions and villas were destroyed. Many of Kep's villas are abandoned, but some of the town's former splendour is still apparent. King Sihanouk built a home here overlooking the Gulf of Thailand, but it was never occupied and now sits empty.

When we arrived we were greeted by a group of tuk tuk drivers all offering to take us to any guesthouse we wanted for a dollar. Not having anywhere in mind we went with the driver who looked the friendliest and he drove us around until we found a place to stay for 'cheap cheap' price. The majority of the guesthouses in Kep have either been built with the old colonial style architecture in mind or are in original converted buildings. This meant the rooms were beautiful yet expensive. Our best bet was a place that offered a dorm, a huge airy room with six double beds in it with a balcony that overlooked the ocean, for 5 dollars per bed. We dropped off our bags, said hello to our new room-mates and left to explore. We'd been told there was a famous crab market nearby so we headed straight there and treated ourselves to a pricey crab lunch with some huge prawns on the side, we shared the feast with the restaurant cats of course.

After lunch we carried on walking along the ocean road, it was very peaceful and we stopped for a while to climb a tree that had grown at a lean towards the horizon, we found a perfect star fish that had been washed up on the shore. As we walked locals on motorbikes stopped for a quick chat, the usual questions 'Where are you from?', 'Where are you going?' were out of genuine interest and weren't leading to the inevitable sales pitch that usually followed in the cities. As we walked and chatted with more locals we admired the abandoned colonial buildings line the ocean road, once upon a time offering the wealthy dwellers magnificant views. Now they are shells of their former glory, some are well hidden behind over-grown lawns with their once pristine white walls covered in damp and moss. However the size and the colonial architecture of these houses has given them a beauty that even time and rot has not decayed; they look mysterious and with only the slightest imagination you can picture the elite and even the King taking his morning tea on the balacony.

As we carried along we turned a sharp corner in the road and saw infront of us a group of Maquac monkey's dashing back and forth across the street. We got a bit closer and then stopped to admire them, a group of locals were feeding them banana's, one of them came over to us and in English asked if we'd like to feed them too. He gave us an banana each and we chatted with him whilst throwing chunks of fruit at the monkey's. We'd already noticed how friendly the Cambodians are while in Phnom Penh, and here in Kep we found them polite, intelligent and delightful people. After this we headed back in the direction of our guesthouse receiving offers of a lift from motorists as we walked, one man on a motorbike even stopped and asked if Luke wanted to come with him to play football at a local school. We watched the sun set over the ocean at our guesthouse and spent the evening chatting and playing pool with our roomies.

The next morning we were up early to catch a boat to nearby island, Koh Tonsay, also known as Rabbit Island. It is located about 4.5 Kilometers southwest of Kep and has two beautiful sandy beaches. The sea is shallow and has a long slope, making it perfect for swimming. We spent the day there just relaxing, reading, swimming and bothering a litter of puppies that we'd found near the beach. The boat came back to pick us up around 4pm and we were taken back to our guesthouse. We went for dinner at a restaurant near the town owned by a Hungarian man who cooked us up some delicious Hungarian food which was a nice change from rice or noodles. When we returned back to our guesthouse we found some new people had arrived and were staying in our dorm, they were hippies and kept everyone awake all night by singing 'Country Road' really badly. The next morning we packed our bags and said goodbye to our friends and left for Kampot.

The main reason we decided to go to Kampot was to visit the Bokor National Park which was close by, established as a hill station by the French, Bokor had been abandoned twice, during World War 2 and the Khmer Rouge period. Presently it is still be home to a crumbling casino, hotel and other buildings and is meant to be quite a spooky place to visit. After checking into a guesthouse we went to explore and figure out how to get a tour to visit the park. The first information place we came to informed us the park was in fact closed. We had heard a rumour that a big hotel chain had bought the remains of the buildings and put plans in place to build a new resort, sadly this turned out to be true and we were too late as it was already in development. The man at the tourist information seemed deeply upset by the plans, tourism to the park was on hold until development was complete which meant huge loss of business for him and many other local tour guides. Plus a brand new development would inevitably draw tourists away from Kampot.

Kampot itself is a small riverside town offering a handful of pleasent guesthouses and a row of restaurants and cafes along the river front. With no other reason to hang around we stayed one night, making the most of our cable TV, and left for Sihanoukville the next day.

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