Kampot, Cambodia

 Notes from the journal:

7/12

  • Landed in Phnom Penh and it reminded me of India (tuk tuks, chaotic traffic) minus the harassment
  • Took a Grab tuk tuk to transit company office and was able to take earlier van to Kampot
  • Booked another Grab tuk tuk to my hostel, which was a ways out of town
  • Got settled and ordered dinner on the deck overlooking the river at the hostel

7/13

  • Slept in and then rented a crappy bike from the hostel and went to the train station to buy my ticket for 7/15 since it wasn’t working online and then went to get some treats in town (pie, ice cream, hot chocolate) at cafes and such.
  • Got a Kao pork dish on the way back to the hostel and did some work on my phone before renting a kayak from the hostel to go for a very peaceful paddle through little side loops off of the river that were covered by drapey palms and cool trees
  • Got back around sunset, ate dinner, read in hammock by the river

7/14

  • This was such a bad day lol, the worst day of the entire summer: woke up early and left at dawn in the rain on the same crappy rented bike (the other ones were unusable due to flat tires and such) and pedaled 30 kms along a busy highway to a pepper farm, which wasn’t as cool as the Google reviews said it was.
  • There was a break in the rain so I got to walk around and see the peppercorns a bit, but then I tried to sit in several spots to eat a snack/breakfast and got bit by a ton of ants so I continued on my merry way and biked 6 kms to salt fields (also not very cool) where I got chased by dogs and splattered with a ton of mud
  • Continued biking in the rain another 6 kms to Kep Beach which was super crowded and the water was muddy so I didn’t stop to sit or swim (was planning on spending most of the day here)
  • Continued on to the crab market (was very hungry at this point) but the crab market was even more chaotic and I got super not good vibes immediately, so I went to the end of the jetty to read a bit more about it and found that indeed there are big pickpocketing operations in there. I could have secured my belongings even more but didn’t want to deal with the possibility of the bike getting stolen, etc.
  • It started pouring even harder when I was at the end of the jetty eating snacks and it got so bad I had to seek shelter. There was a ton of flash flooding and a boat garage kindly let me in for a bit, but the rain didn’t let up much after a long time so eventually I just had to leave and bike through roads that had flash flooded (horrible, horrible times). I was at the farthest point from the hostel so it took forever to get back and the bike hurt so bad (I’m not even kidding I couldn’t sit down pain-free for two weeks after)
  • Stopped for more pie and ice cream in town and then biked the rest of the way back to the hostel to eat dinner 
  • All in all, I would have been so much better off if I had just taken a rest day at the hostel instead of biking 72 kms in pouring rain on a terrible bike, but oh well

7/15

  • Packed up, took a Grab tuk tuk from the hostel to the train station, waited a bit, and then took a one car train to Sihanoukville


Read if I referred you to this post:

Aside from my bad day in Kampot and being there during the rainy season, I would still not recommend it at all. The hostel was the best part in my opinion, which isn’t preferable for a destination. Even during the dry seasons, I could still see the beach and market being incredibly crowded, and there’s just not much to do (and the few things that do exist are pretty far away and very overrated).








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