We spent two nights in Kampot in October 2017, using it as a stopover between Phnom Penh en route to Phu Quoc. Our friends had been and enjoyed it and after meeting other travelers in Phnom Penh who had just come from there, the scale was tilted and we decided to go.
We purchased bus tickets online (Giant Ibis and Kampot Express were both recommended) and had a relatively smooth six hours of travel from Phnom Penh to Kampot, although our driver did stop halfway there to move us all into a different vehicle that waiting on the side of the road 😯 . However, we arrived without a hitch and only spent $7 a ticket so no real complaints.
Our first morning in Kampot we took a tuk tuk to Cafe Espresso for breakfast. It was a charming hipster venue, with vaulted ceilings and trailing plants, serving up good coffee and really good food like poached eggs and muesli at reasonable prices. We bought some coffee beans for our home setup and asked the barista for advice on what to do in Kampot. She suggested going up to Green House, so we did. Before leaving, we poked our heads in next door to Dorsu, an ethically made clothing company that produces their clothes in Cambodia. I bought a cute striped tank for $6! We then rented motorbikes for our journey to the Green House.
This was our first venture into renting motorbikes and it was a great calm place to practice scooting around on fully automatic bikes. The 15 km ride took us out of the city and onto some paved and some dirt roads in rural Kampot. The scenery was lush, framed by mountains and the river.
Green House was fantastic, a restaurant and recreation area (and a guesthouse, which we did not look at) on a fresh water river. We drank delicious mango smoothies, rented stand up paddle boards, floated in tubes off the dock, and explored the river. The water was calm and great for swimming off the dock in the relaxing and crisp water.
We motorbiked back to make it in time for 5pm yoga, held on the second floor of the vegetarian restaurant Simple Things. Classes were $5 each and the space was lovely, with hardwood floors and tall ceilings.
For a night cap, we enjoyed drinks at The Fishmarket Kampot. If you go to yoga you will probably miss Happy Hour but the drinks are so reasonably priced and the venue so lovely that it is still worth the trip.
We think we could have enjoyed and entertained ourselves for an additional day or two in Kampot but we were also ready to move on to Phu Quoc, easily booking our bus/ferry ticket in town the night before we left for $9 USD per person.
Just make sure you have a visa before trying to cross into Vietnam! We saw some people (unsuccessfully) trying to bribe the border agents because they had not purchased visas ahead of time. We bought our visas online before leaving the USA using the Vietnam National Web Portal, printed the confirmation while traveling, and had no problems making the crossing.
Enjoy Kampot!
*While writing this I came across The Culture Trip’s recent article How to Spend 48 Hours in Kampot. Check it our for more good ideas, some of which they share with us!