Cambodia 3. Kep: Spring Festival 2018

Kep from Kampot is only about a 20 minute tuktuk ride away, so not a difficult travel day.

I had booked into a small bungalow, which turned out to be more of a hobbit house. It was a small, round stone thatched hut surrounded by trees. Quiet would be an understatement!

Kep claims to be home to an internationally award winning beach, a rival to Thailand or Vietnam. They are guilty of false advertising. Yes, there is a beach but that is about as close as it gets. It's a stretch of about 100 meters of orange sand, rocks and lots of rubbish. There is absolutely potential for this beach, it just needs a fair amount of TLC.

All of Cambodia is the same, everywhere you look is piles of rubbish and plastic. China has battled most of this by implementing the recycling for cash scheme, I think this would work here too. Like I said, the beach could be nice if it was cleaned up a little bit. It could be ever better if the monkeys could be controlled too. They wandered about the beach stealing everything that they could find and run away with. I watched them for ages from a beach side snack place. Although I am sure they were irritating for the people on the beach, they were highly entertaining for me to watch.


 One favourite sight was one morning getting up and heading to breakfast, walking in on the owner and his wife trying to talk a monkey into cooperation. The monkey was on the pool table in the middle of stealing the cue ball. Apparently this was the second time this had happened. Breakfast and a show!


With the beach being a bit of a bust, I went to investigate the crab market. Kep is famous for its crabs, which explains the giant space invasion statue, and nearly all (90%) of Cambodia's seafood goes thought the market here. It was right on the water so boats would just turn up and sell from the side. I love seafood and spent ages wandering about and taking in the sights and smells (not all good smells though.)

Running along the waters edge from the market in the direction of the beach, was dozens of little restaurants and bars. All had tables on the water and all served mountains of seafood. From the tables I could watch the trading and arguing in the market without having to be in the middle of the chaos. Things could get a little heated when prices were being negotiated .

Kep is a really small place that is trying to cash in on the beach nearest to Phnom Penh tourist money. Its not there yet but there are signs of rapid growth. All along the water from the market round to the next small town, about 3 miles, are huge luxury looking hotels being built. Some are nearly finished and others are still holes in the ground, but after chatting to the owner of the bungalows, things get built quickly. I can't imagine it will be long before Kep works its way up the 'top things to see in Cambodia' list.

 I walked around the coast to the next village/town following the coast walkway as far as I could. At times it disappeared and I had to climb over fences to find my way around. At other times it just stops and retracing steps was necessary. It wasn't the most picturesque walkway but it did. The next town was even smaller than Kep and despite being so close, is completely ignored by the tourists down the road. I found a nice little bar on the beach and settled in with my boom for a few hours before walking back around the coast.


 All in all Kep was a disappointment for the beach but it more than made up for it with the seafood and the market.

Next it was back to Phnom Penh for a night before flying to Siem Reap. I have heard the buses are getting better but I was on a time limit and found amazingly cheap flights. A 40 minute $30 flight when compared to a ten hour $12 bus journey seems like a pretty good deal to me.

The journey back to Phnom Penh was as uncomfortable as on the way down but its still only 4 hours, I managed.