Old French Quarter

Compact grid of colonial-era shophouses and villas along the Kampot riverfront

The old town centre of Kampot is a loose grid of French colonial streets running back from the waterfront. The architecture is modest — two- and three-storey shophouses with iron balconies and arcaded ground floors, built mostly in the 1910s and 1920s — but the scale is human and the streets are walkable. Guesthouses, cafes, and small restaurants have taken over many of the former shops.

The Kampot roundabout at the centre of the old town, with its overgrown circular garden, is the traditional meeting point. The riverfront promenade north of the old market runs along the Praek Tuek Chhu river and is the place to be in the early evening, when the light softens and the river traffic slows. The old market building itself — a mid-20th-century concrete structure — is used as a local market in the mornings and is worth walking through for the food section.

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A story
Kampot escaped the worst of the Khmer Rouge-era destruction that levelled so many Cambodian town centres. The regime's base in this region was in the mountains, not the town, and the colonial buildings were seen as useful. The result is one of Cambodia's most intact collections of French colonial architecture — faded, a little crumbling in places, but genuinely old rather than reconstructed.

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