Kep & The South Coast

Posted 7th October 2013 by David McGuinness

After an early breakfast at my retreat outside Kep I wandered around the pepper plantations. Kampot pepper came to prominence under French rule and was renowned for its rich non-spicy aroma. Under the Khmer Rouge it was discontinued as rice was all anyone was allowed grow but it is starting to be revived again recently. Vet and Meang turned up after breakfast and we headed into the town of Kep and drove past the remnants of its once affluent past. The area was clearly once a play area for the well-heeled but those days are in the past as the shells of a multitude of colonial era villas attest. However, there has been some investment in the area and new properties and hotels are starting to spring up. We headed down to Kep’s famous crab market to watch the fishermen, crab sellers and crab chefs right next to the sea. The market was abuzz with sounds, colours and smells; a real feast for the senses.

Our next stop was Rabbit Island which meant a boat ride across the sea. We got on the boat as the winds got up and the rain started to come down heavily. The ride across was rough, the boat moving from side to side and the waves spraying across it but the rain stopped before long. Rabbit Island itself was a bit of a disappointment, a backpacker hangout with lots of simple lodges and café-bars along the Southern coast to cater to them. And a pleasant beach but little in the way of culture or interest. The boat ride back was choppier still and despite having fairly decent sea legs generally I did start to feel a little green and was pretty much soaked through as well though I managed to keep my camera dry. I won’t be including Rabbit Island on any Travel The Unknown itineraries.

From Rabbit Island we headed into Kampot for lunch in the Epic Arts café. Kampot itself is very much on the Cambodian tourist trail but the visit to the Arts café was worthwhile I felt. The café supports disabled local children through arts projects and work in the café. Visitors can buy t-shirts, bags, jewellery or art pieces or just stop in for coffee, sandwiches or a chocolate brownie. After lunch we headed out to see some salt fields where salt is mined the old fashioned way. Being wet season there was little to see but I had seen a video of it in the dry season and it looked fascinating. So in a way Kampot is the seasoning capital with both famous salt and pepper. Next we visited a cave called Phnom Chhnork which Lonely Planet described as “magical”. After wading through a muddy field and up two hundred odd steps we were met with a “stalactite elephant” and a second “rock elephant” on the wall. Perhaps I was “caved out” having seen quite a few more interesting and spectacular than this but the elephant likeness were fairly tenous and the cave itself rather humdrum I felt. Vet also explained that the local kids had taken to shooting slingshots at the bats whose numbers were fast dwindling.

On the way back to Kep but just on the outskirts of Kampot I had Vet stop at a Muslim fishing village. The fishermen were getting ready to head out to sea for the night, preparing the nets and chatting to each other. We walked along to the mosque that was starting to fill up as the call to prayer rang out and we wandered through to looks of disbelief. We wandered through to the edge of the village to where the rice fields started and chatted with some older ladies about their families, what they were having for dinner, and anything else I was nosey enough to ask about. They seemed to enjoy it and asked a few questions of their own, mostly about my marital status and why I didn’t have any children. Not the first time! Children, dressed in Chelsea, AC Milan and Barcelona shirts played marbles in front of the house as one of their mothers arrived with a live chicken that was to be dinner. We were invited to stay but I knew Vet had plans as his family were in Kampot so we headed on to Kep, and then Vet headed on to Kampot to spend the evening with his family there. In the evening I headed down to the crab market for some delicious crab in one of the many simple crab restaurants along the seafront.