Kampot and Kep Full-Day Tuk-Tuk Tour of Top Attractions

Kampot salt fields

The first stop is the salt fields on the flat land between Kampot town and the sea, where salt has been harvested by hand for generations. Seawater is let into shallow clay pans, left to evaporate under the sun and then raked into white heaps that workers carry in baskets to wooden warehouses along the road. The guide explains the whole cycle and why Kampot salt, like its pepper, is prized in Cambodian kitchens.

Harvesting is seasonal and depends on the weather: in the dry months from roughly December to April you see the pans full of crystals and workers in the fields, while in the wet season the pans are flooded and the warehouses are the main sight. On the later 11:00 departure the tour sometimes returns past the salt fields around sunset, when the shallow water mirrors the sky. The stop takes about twenty minutes.

Phnom Chhngok cave temple

Phnom Chhngok is a limestone hill rising from the rice fields a short ride north of Kampot. A stairway of around two hundred steps leads up and then down into a wide cave, where a small brick temple from the seventh century, built in the pre-Angkorian Funan period, stands beneath stalactites. It is one of the oldest surviving structures in Cambodia, and the way the daylight falls on the red bricks makes it one of the most atmospheric sights in the south.

Local children often act as informal guides on the steps, and the guide tells the legend of the elephant-shaped rock formation inside. Allow about forty-five minutes including the climb; the steps are steep in places, so sturdy sandals or shoes help. A Phnom Chhngok cave temple visit is included in the tour, and the hill also gives a good view back over the countryside and the Bokor range.

Brateak Krola Lake, the Secret Lake

Brateak Krola Lake is a reservoir created in the 1970s and surrounded today by farmland, pepper plantations and the low hills of the province. Locals call it the Secret Lake because it lies off the main road and stayed little known to visitors for years. Its still green water, the wooden jetties and the simple cafés on the shore make it the quietest stop of the day, and a good place for a drink while the guide explains the history of the area.

The tour stops here for about thirty minutes, usually before the pepper farm, which lies only a short ride away. Many travellers searching for how to get to Secret Lake from Kampot find that it is easiest as part of a countryside loop like this one, since there is no public transport and the dirt roads are best left to a local driver.

Kampot pepper farm

Kampot pepper is protected by a geographical indication and considered among the finest in the world, with a floral heat that makes it a favourite of chefs. The tour visits one pepper farm per day, chosen with the group: either the Bo Tree farm, where entrance and a guided walk are included, or La Plantation, the large estate by the Secret Lake, where the entrance fee is paid on site. At both you walk between the tall vines trained on wooden poles under palm-leaf shade and learn how green, black, red and white pepper all come from the same plant.

A sampling of the different peppers and a look at the drying and sorting rooms follow, with a shop for buying directly from the growers. The tour spends about two hours at the farm; guests who prefer not to join the walk have free time to relax. A Kampot pepper farm tour is the highlight of the day for many food lovers.

Kep crab market, seafront and beach

After the countryside, the tuk-tuk takes the coast road for about forty minutes to Kep, the seaside resort founded in 1908 as the retreat of Cambodia's elite. The crab market on the shore is the reason most people come: women wade into the shallows to lift bamboo crab traps, and the open-air stalls beside them cook the catch with green Kampot pepper, the dish Kep is famous for. Lunch here is at your own expense and is the obvious place to try it.

There is time to walk the seafront promenade with its giant crab statue, to see the abandoned modernist villas from the 1960s that line the hills, and to relax on Kep beach, a small curve of sand facing the islands. The afternoon in Kep lasts about two hours before the ride back through the villages to Kampot, arriving in the late afternoon or around sunset depending on your start time.