Four Days In Kampot – What A Wonderful Time

Hey folks!

After a long last night on Koh Rong, it was time to leave the island and head to my next destination in Cambodia. I took the boat in the morning, arrived in Sihanoukville, said goodbye to Micah who had been on the same boat and afterwards jumped on a bus to take me to Kampot, a rather small town in the Southeast of the country. I didn’t know that much about the place when I arrived there, but I had heard some good stories about it so I was really looking forward to my time there. And I did most definitely not get disappointed 😊

When I checked into Mad Monkey’s, my brilliant hostel for the next days, I was still feeling pretty sleepy so I just relaxed in my room and at the hostel pool for a while. Later on, I got to meet some of my new roommates and we went for dinner together which was a great opportunity to get to know each other a bit better. We spontaneously decided to go on a scooter trip together the next day and went to the rooftop bar of the hostel after dinner. That bar is a super nice one with cozy seats, good music and cheap drinks. As the bar always closes at midnight, I joined some others and went to the pool for some kind of night swimming before we went to bed.

On my first day, the time had come to explore the area around Kampot. Me, my roommates Charlotte (ENG), Katja (AUT) and Ron (ISR) and some other guests of the hostel, namely Taryn (CAN), Andy (ENG), Kieran (AUS) and Constantin (AUT) all hired a scooter to get around, so in the late morning, the streets of Kampot weren’t safe anymore 😜 We drove up a mountain for quite a long time and got to see some really nice nature during the ride before we stopped at a big Buddha statue with a great viewpoint on the other side 👌 Unfortunately, the weather got increasingly foggy during the next few hours, so we weren’t able to enjoy some potentially great views. Nevertheless, the trip with the big squad was still great fun. Our next stop was a casino which is literally located in the middle of nowhere. It’s just a small part of a giant building which used to be a hotel and mainly consists of empty rooms. These are perfecty accessible though so while the others tried their luck at gambling, I went to explore the building with Kieran and the three girls. It was a bit of a crazy feeling to walk through all these giant rooms with either nothing or some old items in them. Not really scary but still a little spooky 😉 Anyway, after taking a short look at a temple, we went to the most beautiful sight of our trip: a super cool waterfall 🌊Certainly not the biggest one of my trip but one of the most impressive ones as it was pretty wide and we got really close to it. We stayed there for a while, enjoyed the great view, walked around the waterfall and took some nice pictures before we went on exploring the area and ended up at an old church which looked really shut down and was in a truly bad condition. It was still interesting to visit though. Unfortunately, our group had accidentally split on the way to that church so we had to wait for the others to find us. Luckily, they eventually did and after taking a short look at another former casino which was surrounded by fog, we slowly started to make our way back to town. On the way, the weather got better again and we got to see a nice sunset before we all safely arrived in Kampot and had some tasty food for dinner which set a perfect end to a trip that I thoroughly enjoyed. Some really nice nature, interesting buildings and, above all, great company – who doesn’t like that?! 🙌 But it even got better. When we arrived at the hostel, two other friends of mine had arrived there: George and Diandra! It was a big pleasure to see them again and we had a great time at the rooftop bar and another place after midnight.

In the next morning, a lot of people including almost everyone I had been on the scooter trip with left Kampot. Luckily though, my old Siem Reap friends were still there and so was Charlotte. A very good combination 😊 After being joined by a French girl called Marge, we decided to go on another scooter trip together to explore Kep, a small place famous for its crabs. The sun was shining and it was really hot when we arrived at Kep crab market. The ride was really enjoyable and easy even though I had a second person sitting on my scooter as Diandra didn’t feel comfortable enough to drive herself and preferred to have a chauffeur 😅 Of course, we took the chance to taste some fresh crab along with a lot of rice. It was really yummy 😋 After that, we stopped at a nearby beach to watch the sea and some monks who were just passing by in their typical orange dresses. There’s nothing special about Kep itself so we continued our tour pretty soon and tried to make our way to a pepper farm. Well, we tried to but we never arrived there. The problem was that the driveway was in a terrible condition. It literally felt like a roller coaster. We couldn’t go any faster than 15km/h so we decided to go back as it was already going to get dark. When we got home, the sunset was just about to take place and it was great to watch it right at the river. We had dinner at an English fish and chips restaurant then and once again spent the last hours of the day at the rooftop bar, including lots of drinks and some more or less dramatic beer pong games, especially the one against Jonas (NED) 😜 For the rest of the night, we all went to a kind of outdoor bar and went on partying there. Unfortunately, I drank a bit too much so I just fell asleep during the party 😂

As a consequence of the last night, I was quite hungover on my last full day. After saying goodbye to Charlotte, I really took my time to eat breakfast, went for a swim in the pool and was looking forward to a boat cruise in the afternoon when we were suddenly informed that the cruise had to be cancelled. However, we were offered to join a sunset cruise in the evening instead. In the meantime, I went to Arcadia, a water fun park, with George and Diandra instead and spent some time there. It’s a nice place with some spectacular slides and similar things. Not a must do but a can do 😉 The weather could have been better though as it was raining quite hard in between. Luckily the rain stopped for the cruise but the sun was still nowhere in sight. At least, we got to see some fireflies though which was a truly magic moment, especially with the song “Fireflies” that nearly everyone knows being played in the background. And the river was quite a nice location. Afterwards, I had dinner with my two remaining English friends and Iris, a Dutch girl I had met on the boat, before my last evening in Kampot ended – guess where 😆 – in the rooftop bar.

The 3.5 days in Kampot were certainly one of the highlights of my trip through South-East Asia. There was nothing super special about my time there but it was just the mix of nice nature, the great company of old and new friends and a really good hostel with a brilliant rooftop bar that made my time so enjoyable.

My great memories of this place made me even feel more shocked about the death of two backpackers who died in Kampot just one month after I had been there. This tragedy that can’t be put into words left me quite thoughtful: What if I had felt uncomfortable? What if I had been sold the medicine that killed the two girls? It’s a short walk from heaven to hell…Rest in peace, Natalie and Abbey. You died while doing the best thing one can do – traveling. No one deserves a fate like that.

Cheers

Max