Cambodian Town – Kampot

3/3 Explore the market, Kampot, Cambodia, March 2016  A very pleasant couple of hours observing the life of ordinary Cambodians away from the tourist glare, but now I’d better head on back towards the bus station and with a little time in hand lets go via the market – always a good bet for some colour and excitement. So, back across the bridges, stopping momentarily for another photo or two.

The town centre is pretty small actually with the market situated almost inline with the new bridge – which is ind of on the way back to the bus, and probably time to grab another coffee.

An interesting market here with a big jewelry section. Crafting items in gold, silver among others, they didn’t look too happy when I pointed for a photo – so I didn’t take any of boys and girls busy with their craft. The variety of fish is pretty amazing, dead and alive –  types I haven’t seen at an Asian market before today. A good half an hour or so is adequate to get a flavour of market life here in Kampot but now I wouldn’t mind a nice quiet coffee for 10 minutes.

 

So, that was Kampot in a day. A place with a certain degree of charm both sides of the river. Personally I wouldn’t gain by staying overnight here but plenty of travelers do as there are a host of guesthouses around the place with a couple more dotted along the other side of the river and using the town as a base for exploring the nearby hills and pepper farms, not to mention the next village of Kep. All this of course needs transport – hiring a scooter is the way to go.But for me, its back to Sihanoukville quite glad that I pulled by butt off the beach and made the effort to see Kampot.

The map above shows the route I took to obtain the photos in this article – approximately 3 1/2 hours hours at a pretty slow pace.

A day trip is easy to arrange from here in Victory Hill, Sihanoukville -$5 gets a seat on the Vietnam boarder run at 8 30 am and another $5 for a seat when it returns later picking up in Kampot at 3 30 pm. Its a mini-van, bit cramped full of big built, long legged westerners but at least the operators will do a round-up avoiding the need for a ride downtown first. Travel time is 1 3/4 hours each way and they drop back at the Serendipity office meaning one has to find teir own way home. Victory Hill is $2 on the back of a scooter.

More about Kampot including what to see and where to sleep here.