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Coconut Beach
Coconut Beach is a few hundred metres southeast of Kep Beach, just past the giant crab statue and across the NH33A from two gilded statues that locals say - with a great deal of justification - look like oversized chickens.
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Kep Beach
Kep Beach, which faces south and is thus not great for sunsets, is sandy but narrow and strewn with little rocks. The eastern end of the shaded promenade is marked by a nude statue of a fisher's wife. A waterfront promenade to the Crab Market was under construction as we went to press.
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Kep National Park
Despite its protected status, is in a sad state. Occupying the interior of Kep headland, it has no guest facilities. Access is via an 8km road open to 4WD vehicles. Kep Lodge may be able to arrange a half-day hike through the park as well as snorkelling excursions, fishing trips and seaborne visits to coastal mangrove groves.
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King Sihanouk's Palace
On top of the hill northwest of Kep Beach is a palace built by King Sihanouk in the early 1990s. Before his overthrow in 1970, Kep was one of his favourite spots and he used to entertain visiting foreign dignitaries on an outlying island nicknamed Île des Ambassadeurs. The king may have harboured thoughts of retirement here but his poor health and Cambodia's political instability meant that he never actually stayed at the palace, which remains unfurnished.
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mid-20th-century villas
From Kep's northern roundabout, NH33A heads north past the mildewed shells of handsome mid-20th-century villas that speak of happier, carefree times - and of the truly terribly Khmer Rouge years. Built according to the precepts of the modernist style, with clean lines, lots of horizontals and little adornment, they once played host to glittering jet-set parties and may do so again someday, though for the time being many shelter squatters (and, some say, ghosts).
Showing 1-5 of 5 results
