Kampot

The Lonely Planet guidebooks says: " Kampot has emerged as one of the most popular provinces in Cambodia, thanks to an alluring combination of abandoned colonial towns, abundant natural attractions and easy access around the region.

We found Kampot to be a very cool crumbling Colonial town, but easy access, that is up for debate. Our journey from Siem Reap consisted of a five hour bus ride from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh on a pretty nice tourist bus where we were given a snack box and a bottle of water. Another five hours on a not so nice bus from Phnom Penh to Sihananoukville and a final two hour taxi ride to Kampot. Despite a little sweat spent on the journey, we found Kampot to be a town that exuded both old South East Asia and modern old South East Asia where ancient bicycles park next to brand new Mercedes.

Our reason for being in Kampot was my desire to see as many Great Hill Stations of Asia as possible and the Bakor Hill Station is accessed from Kampot. See Bakor Hill Station section.

Kampots is Cambodia's main producer of Durian. However as I look through my phots I note that I did not manage to photograph any Durian on this trip. Kampot is also know for producer very high quality black pepper and this is probably one of the crops that the French colonists introduced to the region. The French still prize Kampot grown pepper.

In addition to introducing Kampot pepper to the French market, the French brought some very nice architecture to Cambodia.

The communist did not share the French Colonist values when it comes to architecture, but this is a great photo for showing what a stereotypical South East Asia street looks like.

I can never seem to take enough photos of the South East Asian answer to the 7-11