The Central Market
Kampot's Central Market, downtown, is definitely the busiest place in town. Food, clothes,
jewellery, restaurants, household goods, pretty much everything you can buy in town is located in the market, and on the surrounding streets.
The market is at the intersection of the road to Phnom Penh, and the street from the new bridge. Morning,
between 8am to 10am is the busiest time to visit the market. You can get a motodup (motorcycle taxi) from the riverside
to the market for about 1,000 Riel (25 cents U.S.) or walk about 10 to 15 minutes to get here.
Worth an hour walk through, and it's a great place for photography.
The market in Kampot is amazing. Apart from all the fruit and vegetables, there was just about every type of meat, live fish and live birds. Sacks and sacks of rice, of course, but also dried fish, dried prawns and lots of dried fungi. The whole place was bustling with shoppers.
Restaurants Kampot has a number of nice little restaurants, cafés and bars, and like most southern towns
of Cambodia, the emphasis is on fresh seafood. There are also several foreigner-oriented places serving western and international fare, many located along or near the picturesque riverfront road.
You must come in the evening to the riverfront. It is quite popular, offering a tranquil park setting and an idyllic sunset view overlooking the river and mountains beyond.
For a more local experience, fruit shake (‘tukiluk’) and dessert stands set up on the Old Bridge road in the evenings, catering primarily to the locals, but everybody is welcome.
Most of the town shuts down fairly early, with many places closing by midnight, though a few of the foreigner bars such as Bar Red and Wunder-Bar, sometimes stay open quite late. Currently there is one Cambodian-style disco in Kampot offering over-amplified music and beer & whiskey by the bottle, located on the west side of the river a kilometer north of the old bridge. (This disco was used as a filming location for the movie ‘City of Ghosts.’)
