Kep: Cambodia's Secluded Beach Retreat

Kep was once the beach resort of Cambodia. Located near the luxury hotel, casino, and hill station atop Bokor Mountain, it was part of a popular retreat for French colonial administrators. After independence and the end of French Indochina in the mid-1950s, the officials of the Royal government and the small middle class of Phnom Penh became the main patrons there. All that came to an end in with the rise of the Khmer Rouge; Kep was sacked and abandoned. Since Cambodia re-opened to tourism in the late 1990s, the port city of Sihanoukville has become the main focus of beach activities in Cambodia. However, as Sihanoukville becomes more and more like a bad knock-off of the Thai beach city of Pattaya, the quiet, seaside charms of the village of Kep are coming more to the fore.

Getting There

Kep can be reached from Phnom Penh by bus or share-taxi, with the share-taxi costing perhaps ten times as much. Depending on the bus company in question, you will be boarding the bus to the neighboring town Kampot, which will run past Kep on its way there, and drop you off just outside of the village.

The simplest way to get back and forth from Kampot, the nearest town, is to bargain for a trip on the back of a fellow's motorbike ("moto"). This is a common means of transport in Cambodia, and pretty much anyone passing on a motorbike may be willing to double as a bike-taxi.

It is also possible to get to Sihanoukville by share-taxi, but these must be chartered.

What to Do

Kep is a small fishing village, set off of a strip of sand and pebble. These are typically busy on the weekend, but quiet during the week. Kep is a popular weekend holiday location for expats and middle class Khmers from Phnom Penh. The expats will be mostly French and working for the UN or some other NGO, and are getting a kick out of being in their former colonial retreat. Very few "proper" international tourists find their way to Kep, so when the weekend visitors go home, these will be the only tourists around, creating a very tranquil, sleepy atmosphere during the week.

The beach road is lined with seafood shacks. Kep is famous for its crabs, which are caught on a line and then kept in a shore cage for the utmost freshness. You can either have the crabs there, or take them back to your guesthouse/hotel for cooking. Also, neighboring Kampot is the center of Cambodia's pepper plantations. Once upon a time, no fine French restaurant would dare to have served anything but Kampot pepper. Furthermore, fresh green peppercorns are a completely different culinary experience from dried pepper. So, be sure to sample the crabs, any dish that features pepper sauce, and preferably fresh crabs in fresh pepper!

The walk along the beach road can take on a creepy atmosphere. If you turn away from the seashore, you will see ruin after ruin. These were the villas owned by well-to-do Khmers, sacked and the abandoned by the Khmer Rouge. They stand as a shabby, mute testament to a very different Cambodia, now long gone.

Alas, the beach at Kep is not very good. In the 1960s, the King had sand dredged from Sihanoukville and brought to Kep to maintain a nice-but-half-artificial beach. However, there is a good beach on nearby Koh Tunsay (Rabbit Island), which can be reached by fishing boat for a modest fee. Make a nice day trip of it. The waters are calm, crystal clear, and host a lot of fish if you wish to snorkel around. The island itself is small, home to very few permanent residents, and so more than likely there will be fewer than 15 people, tourists and Khmers, on the island at any given time.

Also, the Kep Lodge has begun arranging snorkeling trips. While there are plenty of fish off Rabbit Island, there are no corals. The snorkeling day trip will take you to Koh Saran, with two snorkeling sites boasting the extreme rarity of a virtually untouched coral reef.

Trips to the ruined resort atop Bokor mountain can be arranged either by renting a sturdy motorcycle and going alone, or by going up to Kampot. It is also possible to easily visit the pepper plantations around Kampot.

Where to Stay

Kep is not yet Sihanoukville, but there is still an ample selection of places to stay, suiting all prices ranges. The most well-known is the Beach House, a standard mid-range hotel at the far end of the Beach Road. Offering some intimate, simple luxury is the Kep Lodge (who also run the snorkeling trips), featuring only six modern bungalows on the property.

However, if you can do without air conditioning, the author strongly recommends Le Bout du Monde Guesthouse. Run by a young French couple (the wife's parents were Khmer refugees), the place evokes the feel of a tropical paradise playhouse. The guesthouse's restaurant specializes in authentic Khmer seafood. It is one of the most charming places in the world to get a little simple, rustic peace and quiet.