Leaving Phnom Penh in the morning, we planned to ride to Kampot, the long way around. Kampot is a small river town which had been used as a “seaside retreat” before the civil war. It is still small and charming but on the rise and we decided to check it out rather than the beach town of Sihanoukville.

5m wide, 27m long … this strange pattern is found all over south-east Asia.

There is a pretty direct road to Kampot from Phnom Penh, however, in order to see at least a bit of Cambodia’s mountains, we used the “scenic route” which led past the Elephant mountains. The Cardamom mountains still elude us. Lots of eco-tourism opportunities are available for trekking in the National Park of these mountains but they are all not accessible with a motorbike. Most of them actually start in tiny village that you reach via a boat cruise up the river. Leaving the bike behind feels wrong so I guess, we will have to come back to Cambodia at some time.

The route was nice and it was a great change to see some mountains again in this flat country but we completely forgot to take any pictures. Through the detour, the day’s ride was quite long again with 240km; and we drove it almost in one go.

Would fit into an Alsacian town juts as well

Entering Kampot via a bridge over the river, we liked it immediately. A sleepy little town with roundabouts as their sightseeing attraction and a great riverside promenade with restaurants and cafes. Our little Pepper guest house, carefully checked out via the internet in advance, also was lovely and the rooms with fan only cost US$7 per night. Glad that we had booked two nights already, we went into town after a shower.

There are many colonial buildings still standing here and it gives Kampot quite the French atmosphere. When we reached the river (not far from Pepper guest house at all), the sun was just starting to set, tinging everything in a warm yellow. Sitting down and watching it for a bit, we then decided to go to a Lonely Planet recommendation for dinner, even if it was a little more expensive than the other options around.

The local fishermen leaving for another nights catch

Rikitikitavi is across the road from the river so that the terrace looks out over it. While entering, we noticed the big sign of “2 for 1 cocktails from 5-7pm” which was now. So we ended up ordering a mojito, a home-made lemonade and Khmer dinner. The staff was so friendly and while nibbling on the salted peanuts that we received, the cocktails arrived. Just…they weren’t mojitos but we totally forgot to connect this fact with our order and started sipping them away. They were good. Made with fresh pineapple juice. Wait…pineapple juice in a mojito? It was right then that our mojitos arrived as well…and we were really embarrassed that we’d forgotten what we ordered. The waitress said it was her mistake and she gave us the first round of cocktails for free. So in the end, we both ended up with four cocktails at the price of one. 🙂