Things to do in Kep
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Crab Market
Dining in Kep is all about fresh seafood. For the best deals head to the Crab Market, a row of wooden waterfront shacks where you can tuck into mouth-watering grilled prawns, crab, squid, squid and fish. In case you're interested, crabs - kept alive in pens tethered a few metres off the pebbly beach - cost per kilo.
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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).
Don't even think of buying one - they were all snapped up for a song in the mid-1990s by speculators well-connected in Cambodia's murky corridors of military and civilian power.
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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.
Access is from the east; it's usually possible to walk around the grounds - after tipping the guard, if necessary.
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Riel
This unpretentious bar, restaurant and bakery, owned by a Dutch former sound engineer and his Khmer wife, occupies a hangar-like space outfitted with wicker chairs and a couple of hammocks. Specialities include pastries, cakes, German beer bread and home-made ice cream confected without eggs (to avoid salmonella). Prices are quoted only in riels - thus the name. The website has an activities calendar.
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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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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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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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Kimly Restaurant
Perhaps the best of the Crab Market eateries, specialities here include prawns with sprigs of Kampot pepper and fresh crab. Mains come with a tasty dessert: fried tarrow root in sugar.
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