Salt and pepper built Kampot's reputation long before any travel guide did. The first spreads out in shimmering ponds between the town and the Gulf of Thailand; the second ripens on vines lined up at the foot of the Elephant Mountains, and top chefs the world over fight over it. Ships call at the tourist landing set up at the mouth of the Praek Tuek Chhu, from where a short transfer leads into the centre of this former port town in southern Cambodia, set between sea, mountain, and plantations.

A Waterfront With Colonial Charm

Designated the kingdom's sole maritime gateway by King Ang Duong in 1840, Kampot became, under the French protectorate, the country's leading trade outlet, before Sihanoukville took over in the mid-twentieth century. What remains is a grid of quiet streets where period trading houses, repainted in pastel or weathered by the monsoon, now hold cafés, galleries, and small, unassuming boutique hotels. You can wander along the quays, pass the old administrative buildings with their peeling paint and the old market with its 1930s look, and inevitably come across the durian roundabout, decorated with a giant statue of Asia's most divisive fruit, a fully embraced emblem of the province.

The Pepper That Bears the Town's Name

Pepper farms dot the surrounding countryside, about half an hour's drive away. Under tall shaded poles, the clusters turn from green to red as they ripen, picked by hand and then sorted grain by grain on long wooden tables. The designation of origin is protected, much like a fine wine appellation, and the farms welcome visitors to explain the harvest cycle, let them bite into a fresh peppercorn that bursts in the mouth, and sell their white, black, or red harvests. Green pepper served on the stalk with crab at the nearby Kep market is one of the signature dishes of the whole coast, and many passengers make it their meal for the stop.

The Salt Flats and the River

Between the town and the sea, the salt pans form a silvery checkerboard where, in the dry season, workers rake the salt into small, gleaming mounds before carrying them on their shoulders, in twin baskets, to the wooden storehouses. The sight, especially late in the day, looks like a painting. The salt workers start early, before the full heat sets in, and early-rising visitors can watch them push their rakes through a still-pink light. The Praek Tuek Chhu offers its own ritual: boats carry visitors gliding between mangroves and Cham fishing villages as the sun drops behind the hills. Kingfishers skim low over the water, nets come up, and the mountain turns inky blue.

Bokor, the Ghost Resort

On an excursion, the road winds up to the Bokor plateau, where the French built a hill resort in the 1920s now left to the mists of altitude. The old palace with its empty rooms, the squat red-brick church, and the lookouts that reach, on a clear day, all the way to the Vietnamese island of Phu Quoc make for a memorable outing, provided the stop allows enough time. The contrast is striking: the coast's humid heat gives way to the cool air of mid-altitude mountains, and the roar of scooters to the silence of a plateau where clouds drift through.

Once the ship is back out to sea, Kampot leaves behind a precise memory on the tongue: the bite of a fresh peppercorn, softened by the salty breeze. Some destinations are visited; this one is tasted, and the jar brought home in the luggage will stretch the stop out a little further with every turn of the pepper mill, long after the return.