Jen and Nathan's Weekend Getaway to Kampot

A few weeks ago, Nathan and I spent a lovely weekend away--sans kids--in Kampot, a charming river town about 3 hours from Phnom Penh. Our lovely alone time was courtesy of our good friends Cullen and Vanessa, who volunteered to sleep at our house and be in charge of the kids while we were away, and Sinen and Somany, who helped Cullen and Vanessa and kept the house on its normal routine.

Our accommodation was this guest house outside of town that does not advertise and was billed as "the best place to stay in Kampot." We quickly learned that it deserves that appellation mainly because there are no great places to stay in Kampot. Our spot was more reminiscent of summer camp, with bungalows with no A/C, no hot water, and lots of bugs. However, it did have a lovely view and the staff was friendly. Also, at something like $30/night, we certainly got what we paid for.

View of the Teuk Chhou River from our guest house.

Kampot is one of those terrific second-class tourist destinations--the sort of place that foreign tourists here to see the temples would never make time for, but that offers a nice change of pace for those of us resident in country. Its principal attractions are several good restaurants along the riverfront, beautiful setting, and not being in Phnom Penh.

Here's one example of the French legacy you often see in Kampot and other provincial capitals.

We had a fun time crawling through one of the many local caves...

Jen with our tour guides at the cave

...and, after much searching in the beautiful countryside, finally found the pepper plantations the region is famous for.

Jen with the proprietor of the pepper plantation where we bought pepper as late Father's Day gifts for our dads.

Pepper plant, after the pepper has been harvested

We also drove to the small resort city of Kep, which was the vacation spot of the elite in the 1960s and only recently has really made a comeback.

Beachfront at Kep

Kids playing on the beach at Kep

As our time in Kampot drew to a close, we decided to take an informal tour of the mangroves not far from Kampot. (Mangroves are really cool and important from an ecological standpoint. Liz is probably an expert in this already, but here's a few good basic explanations from the Queensland, Australia government and wikipedia.)

First, we passed by the salt flats, where sea water is allowed to dry in the sun so the salt can be harvested.

Stunning coastal scenery. (This boat was identical to ours, and the man rowing our boat was an amputee with 7 kids. Needless to say, we paid him well for his time and effort.)

Father and son fishing in the Gulf of Thailand