Krong Koh Kong

Travel Adventure in great Nature. 

Koh Kong City is the capital of the province, located at the mouth of the Kah Bpow river and about 12 km from the Thai border near Trat which is in the very south east of Thailand. It is about 300 km to Phnom Penh via Sre Ambel, there is also the drive to the capital via Kampot and Sihanoukville but the travel time is much longer.

The road is not bad although it’s already starting again to deteriorate (2015) because they don’t know how to build them. That’s the same between the capital and the Thai border for Bangkok which degenerated for long parts into a dirt trail again. This is the wild west of the country and not much is going on but slowly it becomes a low level tourist destination. 

A rather slow emerging tourism destination and mainly known for the visa run a one hour minibus ride from the town to the Cambodian border and maybe back, but its worth to take a motorbike taxi from the border for around Baht 100,- and stay at the city hotel just at the waterfront behind the bridge, a night is $ 20,- and that’s the best of all accommodation around, see the picture below. 

They also have several pavilions built into the water in front of the hotel functioning as a restaurant and the food is excellent.

There is some nightlife entertainment with two discos, several bars and restaurants. This is all rudimentary but not bad, the dance floors are rather small and places fill up quick. 

At the entrance is a extensive search for weapons they seems to have bad experience with it. That is definitely a good idea because after people are getting drunk they are hard to control.

Another place for night fun is the "chicken farm" I guess you know what that means, actually the girls are ugly not worth to go there.

Nightlife in Krong Koh Kong is even better than in Siem Reap and that means something because here in the South on the South China Sea are almost no tourists. 

All bus tickets to Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville are available in the hotel, if you use one of the buses they will pick you up from the hotel. Aside of exploring the nature there are not many things to do in Koh Kong. A pretty wilderness at the border to Thailand where every day a few dozen people come in from Trat and Koh Chang. 

Here are some day trips you can make.

A beach is not far away, the next beach is about 10 km away from the city (picture left) with mainly pine trees and nothing exciting also the water is not  clear at all since its very flat. But the area is very pristine, there are still millions of shells covering the sand and almost no people around.

At the east end is a army post and two huts where fisherman live. The place is the total contra to Jomtien Beach at Pattaya Thailand with thousands of tourist covering the sand. The untouched bamboo and tree jungle is really exciting and many places are only reachable via difficult dirt roads, the ideal vacation destination with the motor bike.

Sre Ambel Day Trip through riverbeds, over bridges made from tree trunks and when the bike cant be used anymore trekking is on the agenda about one hour trek over a continuous ascending trek.

The present to be received at the end is a great waterfall in the jungle, the Peal Rong Waterfall at Sre Ambel right in a setting which would please Indiana Jones.

Koh Poi Waterfall or rather rapids is to the west via a bumpy speed boat ride into the creek but this are rather rapids, its worth the one hour banging onto the water since the speed boat does what the name indicated it’s real speedy. Hopefully they will block the loggers who try their luck with quite some money supplied by shady figures from Thailand and Singapore.

Koh Kong Province, the whole area bordering Thailand is still in pristine conditions because the mad Khmer Rouge didn't allow anyone to move around here. 

Day trip to Tatai Waterfall, this actually is a cluster of rapids but the water is falling. Tatai waterfall or rather Tatai rapids are the the closest to Koh Kong City, its just about 40 minutes with the motorbike. The falls should be on the agenda of every visit in this part to Cambodia, its simple great nature. Just take a motorbike taxi for around $ 10,- and you will have a beautiful morning. Leaving the hotel at 9am it's easy to be back at lunchtime, read more.

At the South China Sea Waterfront.

If you have some time for a half day trip the Tatai Waterfall and Rapids north of the city on the road to Phnom Penh are worth a visit. Just take a motor bike taxi outside the hotel it will take less than one hour to reach the place. Very pretty idyllic riverfront also ok for swimming.

In the town center is a new disco with Heineken for $ 4,-, no entrance charge but they do a very close body search, they have plenty of lasers as you can see at the Cambodia pictures below. There is one more disco / bar close by and a pretty bar called sunset a bit further to the east.

Koh Kong Beach

Seaside in Sihanoukville