KOH KONG
Khemarak Phoumin: A Guide to Koh Kong City
Khemarak Phoumin, or more commonly called Koh Kong City or Krong Koh Kong, sits at the base of the Cardamom Mountains, alongside the Gulf of Thailand. Although people often head straight to Koh Kong’s beaches or islands, we found the town a good base for visiting the mangroves and exploring the surrounding area.
The town itself tends to feel like a place just getting on with the job. It’s certainly not the prettiest town in Cambodia, and if you are expecting beautiful beaches with lush green mountains around it, you might be quite a bit disappointed, but the city does exactly what it needs to and puts you within easy reach of some of the beautiful places around it. The main part of town sits along the river, where fishing boats line the waterfront. In fact, when first entering town you will probably notice the Koh Pao River and the long bridge spanning it, which at 2 km long is hard to miss.
The bridge opened in 2002 and at the time was an important part of improving the road connection between Cambodia and Thailand. With the border currently closed, you can no longer follow the road across the bridge and on to Thailand.
Most of Khemarak Phoumin sits on the eastern side of the Koh Pao River. This is where many of the fishing boats head out each day to catch fish and seafood in the gulf and along the river. The waterfront is lined with boats bringing in the daily seafood catches Koh Kong is famous for. This is a great spot to wander and watch people bringing in their daily haul before it makes its way into the market.
Large, wide roads run through the city centre, where you’ll find a few statues and an Independence Monument. There is a park near the river where you can take a seat and watch the traffic along the river and across the bridge.
Things to do in Khemarak Phoumin
Eat seafood at the night markets
There are two main markets in the centre of town, the seafood market on the river and the Central Market a few streets inward. Like any Cambodian market, the latter is bustling with people buying meat and vegetables and their daily living needs. There are a few places to eat around here and there is also a small minimart, although if you are after supplies a larger Lucky Supermarket opened while we were here.
The highlight though, is walking through the seafood market, which sits right along the river. Little red stools sit beside large steel tubs brimming with seafood, with the occasional rogue crab scuttling away, alongside more permanent stalls with fish tanks full of every type of seafood. The boats line up here dropping off seafood and unloading the morning’s catch straight into the market.
The time to head to this area, though, is at night when a stall area is set up selling fresh seafood from the day’s catch and cooking it right in front of you. We ate at two places. On the first night we ate at a well-set-up area near the market. It was lined with permanent stalls all with tubs and fish tanks outside selling the day’s catch.
The second night we ate inside the port, which at night turned into a temporary tented night market. We chose some scallops, lobster and local cockles to enjoy with a couple of beers and sat on red chairs next to the boats lined along the port. With a view of the bridge lit up at night, it was definitely our pick for a seafood night market.
Explore the Peam Krasaop Mangroves
Just outside Khemarak Phoumin, the Peam Krasaop mangroves are one of the easiest places to get out into Koh Kong’s mangrove forests. The community tourism here is well-set-up, making it easy to see part of the much larger Peam Krasaop Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the largest mangrove systems in Southeast Asia.
A long concrete boardwalk takes you through the mangroves to an observation tower where you can choose to take a boat back or wander back through the mangroves. The boardwalk gets you very close to the mangroves and in places you are completely surrounded by the twisted roots of the trees and can look over the edge into the clear shallow water.
You can also take a boat further into the mangroves and out towards the surrounding fishing communities. We spent a couple of hours here one morning, walking the boardwalk and then an evening watching the sunset from a boat as we travelled through the waterways looking for dolphins.
Visit Bak Khlang Beach
If, like us, you don’t want to travel to the islands, Bak Khlang Beach sits along the coast just across the Koh Kong Bridge. We headed there because we planned to camp at the Crab Shack, and once we’d set up the tent we could sit back and enjoy the beach.
It’s not the white sandy beach you might expect to find in Koh Kong, and the beach is mainly lined with restaurants and small huts so don’t expect to be able to lie on the beach but its a great location to order some food or a couple of drinks and sit back and watch the sunset, which is exactly what we did.
As the sun set we watched the tide come in and enjoyed a walk along the shallow water. Some people were swimming but we just enjoyed the water lapping at our feet. And then we sat back with a beer and watched the boats heading out for their night of fishing as the sun disappeared.
Khun Chhang’s Stupa
On your way to or from Bak Khlang Beach, you can call in at Khun Chhang’s Stupa. The small stupa seen from the bridge was, according to legend, built by a heartbroken Khun Chhang after the king killed his wife.
Sitting on a small rocky outcrop, the stupa is accessed by walking over a concrete walkway out into the river. It’s a popular place for people to leave offerings and to pray.
Koh Kong Islands
Now most people probably think it is strange that we didn’t visit an island while we were here. And many of you have probably found your way here looking for information about them. We visited Koh Kong as a motorbike trip, so the islands weren’t really part of this particular trip – motorbikes make the boat trips a little tricky. But it’s easy to organise island trips from Koh Kong and we do want to go back and experience them, so stay tuned.
If you are there for the beaches, Koh Kong Island is the largest in Cambodia, but there are also plenty of other islands to explore around the province, including Koh Sdach and Koh Khmoch. Avytravel, whose blog I used when planning our trip, gives a great overview of the islands if you are thinking of going.
A little further out
Tatai Waterfall
A popular day trip from Khemarak Phoumin is Tatai Waterfall, or you can do as we did and spend a night in Tatai. It’s a good chance to see a little more of Koh Kong’s rivers and forests and the drive there is beautiful. Only 20 km from Khemarak Phoumin, the waterfall spreads across a wide rocky section of the Tatai River, with plenty of places to sit, swim and spend a few hours by the water.
In Tatai you can hire a boat to take you to the waterfall or just take a ride along the Tatai river, which is beautiful.
On your way to or from Tatai you can drop in at the Win-Win Monument, which gives you great views over the mangroves and the Cardamom Mountains behind you. There is also some historical information on the monument itself.
Koh Kong Airport
Not far from town is the old airport. No longer functional, there’s not much to see there but we love to visit an abandoned airport so stopped in here on our way out of town.
The airport dates back to the 1960s and its laterite runway is pretty overgrown now. The old terminal building and the tower are still there, although there were people using the buildings so we didn’t get close.
Before the bridges and improved roads made Koh Kong much easier to reach, the little airport provided an important connection with Phnom Penh. Commercial flights were still operating here in the late 1990s, with Royal Air Cambodge flying between Phnom Penh and Koh Kong on Tuesdays and Sundays.
How long to stay
We came to Koh Kong as part of a motorbike trip from Battambang, stopping in O’soam on the way there and Pramouy on the way back. Our first night in Khemarak Phoumin, we stayed on the beach, followed by a night at Tatai on the river. Our final night was spent at a guesthouse. We had planned to camp again on our final night but we were there when the conflict with Thailand started again and wanted to monitor the situation in case Nehru had to head to work quickly. As it was, he headed the next morning to the displaced camps in Pramouy to cover people leaving their homes for the second time in a few months.
We think three nights was a good amount of time for us. If we were going to do an island day trip, we probably would’ve stayed an extra night, or even had one night on an island. We also didn’t rush out to see things and spent time relaxing, especially on the beach and at the river in Tatai. You could easily spend one night in Khemarak Phoumin and then head to Tatai or the islands rather than making Khemarak Phoumin the base like we did.
Where to stay
There are quite a few guesthouses in town at reasonable prices. We only spent one night in a guesthouse, at Kaing Kaing Guest House along the river, where we paid 40,000៛ ($10) for a fan room.
Mainly catering to Cambodian tourists, it was clean, had everything we needed and we found it good for the price. It had a small balcony overlooking the market, with views out towards the river and sea. We had a great time watching the side trade of crabs in the street below.
Our first night we camped at the Crab Shack restaurant on Bak Khlang Beach. For 20,000៛ ($5) a night we set up our tent on one of their huts lining the beach. They supplied tents too, although you would need to bring your own sleeping gear. We used their toilet and shower and there were quite a few places nearby where you could get food or a coffee in the morning.
A highlight of staying here was waking to the waves crashing on the beach beneath us.
Nearby is Young, Wild and Free, which also has hut style accomodation lining the beach and a bar selling western food and cocktails.
Where to eat
For lunch on our first day we ate banh chaev (បាញ់ឆែវ), but there were lots of options near the market and there are quite a few Vietnamese restaurants around town.
For dinner we suggest you head to the night seafood markets. You can walk the stalls and choose the seafood you want to eat and how you would like it cooked. Then simply take a seat at a nearby table and they will bring it to you. You can also order drinks and some other dishes like fried rice.
Cash and supplies
There are ATMs/banks, pharmacies, fuel stations and normal town supplies in town. The Lucky Supermarket stocks many western supplies, and there are a couple of minimarts around town too. Most places take the Bakong QR code, but credit cards are not commonly accepted so it’s best to carry some cash.
Getting to Khemarak Phoumin
We arrived in Koh Kong on the motorbike from Battambang but you can also access Koh Kong from Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh.
Virak Buntham has buses from Sihanoukville (5 hours 45 minutes) and Phnom Penh (6 hours). You can usually organise a taxi between all of these destinations through your guesthouse.
After hearing stories for years and seeing photos of people stuck on muddy red roads, we found nothing but sealed bitumen and wide shoulders. If you read older posts saying the road is inaccessible for part of the year, that information is now outdated. The drive now takes approximately five hours by car.
The new road is going to make this part of Cambodia much easier to reach. On our way we even ran into a friend who was driving between Battambang and Koh Kong.
If you have a driver, you could now easily travel Siem Reap – Battambang – Koh Kong – Phnom Penh, taking you right through the Cardamoms along the way.
Getting around Khemarak Phoumin
We had the motorbike with us, but when we were in the centre it was actually pretty easy to get around town on foot. There were plenty of tuk-tuks at the market offering to take people to the mangroves.
PassApp is available, although there aren’t as many drivers as you’ll find in Phnom Penh. Grab wasn’t available when we were there. They now list Koh Kong as one of their operating locations, though, so this could change.
Khemarak Phoumin might not be the reason most people come to Koh Kong, but we really enjoyed our few days here. Between the seafood markets, mangroves, beach and our night out at Tatai, it gave us an easy way to explore this part of the province without rushing around. And there are still those islands we need to come back for.
We last visited Koh Kong in December 2025
Related Posts
