The 5 Best Adventure Activities in Kampot

1 - Arcadia Waterpark

Our first day was spent Arcadia Waterpark, which cost $7 for an all day wristband. It was literally amazing! It's a really cool vibe there too, everyone was just having fun, enjoying the Waterpark with a beer in hand! There's tonnes for you to play around on, including the blob jump - which we saw around 2 people successfully complete, so don't worry if you can't, I resembled a seal slipping off three times before eventually admitting defeat and giving up. They also have a rope swing, a zipline, a huge ladder to jump off, a super-steep slide and a climbing wall! If you are anything like us, you could just play all day there and never go home!
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Adventure rating - 4/10 (Epic fun)
Fitness Level - 1/10 (you can just drink all day and watch others)
Fear rating - 2/10 (you do literally fly into the sky on the slide!!!)
Cost per two people - Motorbike $4, $14 Entry, Beers $8, Food $10

​2 - Bokor Mountain

​On our second day, we headed to Bokor Mountain. Bokor Mountain is in the heart of Kampot and is a great day out for the motorbike journey, the fresh mountain air, the scenery and nature as you drive up... And now also for it's world class resort hotel and casino due to new Chinese developments? More on this later! We rented a motorcycle on our first day arriving in Kampot, so we used this to get us to the top of the mountain. It's a 32km winding road to the top with steep hills and sharp corners, so care is definitely needed when driving here! I know it goes without being said but make sure you have enough petrol as we saw some poor guy having to push his motorbike up the hill at one point! It also gets cold quite nearer the top, so bring a jacket! The scenery is so beautiful, we thought we were never going to make it to the top as we kept stopping to look at the view/scramble on any random rocks that we found. Half way to the top, there is an amazing Monument called the Lok Yeay Mao Monument, which is supposedly the St Christopher of travellers across Asia. It really is quite amazing and the best monument we've seen so far.  the sheer size of the thing shocked and impressed us both!

This is one heck of a statue!

One thing that Bokor Mountain was most famous for was the Abandoned Casino at the top. We were so excited about exploring it, only to find that it has been demolished by Chinese Developers and turned into a World Class Hotel with a Casino inside. We had a look on booking.com and found one of the rooms to be advertised for $650 per night, so you can imagine how  fancy this place is inside! We were so gutted not to be able to explore the Abandoned Casino, however had a little mooch around the casino inside the hotel. It was rubbish! After going through some sort of military operation to get in, with metal detectors and bag searches, we sat down at one of the computer-operated roulette tables and played a few games. The casino was silent and even the attendees looked bored out of their minds. We left because we are both rubbish at betting and would rather waste our money on other things rather than big, corporate Chinese developments.

One of the most childish 28 year olds you'll ever come across

If you are into your abandoned buildings though, you will love driving up to the top of the mountain. There are at least 6/7 abandoned buildings, including a church which was actually really cool to explore with its alter and crucifix still in place.

One of our first stops was for the Popokervil Waterfall. There's a restaurant at the top as you go in, which made us think it was going to be really westernised. However, on scrambling down the steep jungle path to the bottom of the waterfall, we really did see it's unspoiled beauty! The waterfall is literally amazing. The water crashed down on to the large white sandstone rocks at the bottom - the whole setting looked like it belonged in a film. To enter the waterfall, it's 2000 KHR each (50p), however the restaurant at the top gives you a free bottle of water with your entrance fee, so well worth the money you pay!

Sitting on the Edge of Popokervil Waterfall, well worth visit!

If you drive up towards the newly built Bokor Palace (which has replaced the ruins of the old Bokor Palace, of course) you’ll come to an abandoned building on your right. Explore this building as it’s awesome, however beyond this point is the view point for the peak of Bokor Mountain. We thought the view was pretty awesome, however imagined it would have been so much better without it being cloudy like it was that day!

Adventure rating - 4/10
Fitness Level - 2/10 
Fear rating - 3/10 (some really good scrambling to be had around the Popokervil Waterfall and on the cliffs during the drive up)
Cost per two people - Motorbike $4, Fuel $4, Entry was free, Waterfall entry $1, beef noodle soups $6, Coffees - $3

​3 - Climbing with Climbodia

On our third day, we went on a Lead Climbing course in the morning. Jac and I are really into Rock Climbing and are looking to stay in a Rock Climbing Camping site for a couple of weeks in Laos, North Vietnam and Krabi in Bangkok. We thought it would be a good idea to sharpen up our skills beforehand and so we did with none other but... Climbodia! These guys run a rock climbing activity centre from their office in Kampot. They take groups out to rock climb/abseil/Via Ferrata in Kampot’s best caves and rock climbing spots. We did a half-day lead climbing course with them for $45 each (Top-rope and cave discovery tours for all levels are $40 if you are interested in this too) The guys who taught us were awesome, we picked up some really good techniques throughout the day whilst having such a good laugh too! We fully recommend these guys - Climbodia

​After Climbodia, we headed out to Secret Lake.  The lake is so beautiful, which makes the history behind it even more shocking. The lake was previously used as a mass grave during the Khmer Rouge. The lake was built using captured villagers who dug day in day out to create the dam. Thousands of people were killed after the dam was completed, buried in the mass grave and then covered with water so no one would find them. The "secret" in its name comes from one villager who escaped and told others of this hidden mass grave. To this day, remains have never been found and worse still, some fishermen still claim to find human bones in their catch.  This goes to explain why there aren't any hotels situated around the lake! There were tonnes of little street food stalls and seating areas though, so it was a great place to grab lunch!

Adventure rating - 5/10
Fitness Level - 6/10 (depending on how much climbing you want to do but we were dripping)
Fear rating - 5/10 (Your safe of course but the rock is quite sharp so if you feel could cause some nasty injuries - for lead climbing only)
Cost per two people - Motorbike $4, Fuel $1, free water, $90 for the half day.
​Secret lake, $2 for some giant coconuts and waterside hammocks

One of Climbodias' amazing guides (Mae), who first inspired us to find the Secret Waterfall!

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​4 - Phnom Chhnork Cave Temple

The temple is located a short walk away from Wat Ang Sdok. Its located on MapsMe and can be found as 'CaveTemple' about 7km out of the centre. As soon as you arrive, you are greeted by lots of children who speak the most amazing English! They offer a guide service for anyone that wants to be taken around the caves. Although, for us this was not needed as we wanted to explore for ourselves with no idea what was to come! You'll need to pay for parking but this means your motorbike is safe (our choice of travel when in Kampot) for $0.50.

The caves are magnificent. The first thing we came to was a long set of stairs which had a huge stone snake head at the beginning, the rest of the snake body wrapped around the handrail all the way to the top. On getting to the top you see another set of stairs to your left, this time heading down to the caves. Inside the cave is a beautiful brick temple, dedicated to Shiva. The temple was constructed in the 18th century and is therefore, Cambodia's oldest standing temple at 1700 years old! The temple surrounds a natural linga formed by stalagmite, which you see as soon as you enter. It was really cool to look at, but you’ll find the coolest thing about the caves to be inside the actual caves!

Incredible to think this has been here for thousands of years

We headed over to the back of the cave and found a little opening in the rocks to the left hand side. After a pep talk with each other regarding whether we were actually going to be able to get back out, we lowered ourselves in! The caves were pitch black inside, luckily we both brought our phones and could use our torches to guide us (make sure to bring a flashlight or your phone or you’ll be in deep doodoo). We suggest a torch as you won't see as much with a phone and miss out in some of the bigger caverns. We followed the natural route of the caves, scrambling down to deeper levels, minding not to walk into the rock pools (even though Jac stood in at least 2)  or walk into the low-hanging stalagmites. There were bats flying everywhere, which added to the immensity of being so deep in the caves. After climbing, scrambling, and falling deeper and deeper with no idea where we were going, we finally saw the light (at last!), below it was a huge rock pool that showed reflections of all the rocks above. We scrambled along the rock pool and came to a little opening to the outside of the mountain (worth pointing out, bring some old shoes as you are guaranteed to at least get wet feet at this stage and would be lucky not to fall in!). After squeezing ourselves out of the tiny hole, we were greeted by 10-20 monkeys that were playing all over the mountain top and jungle floor. We can’t emphasise enough getting your hands dirty and climbing into the mountain itself! The caves are beautiful from the outside, but the best adventure comes from within!

If you're getting cold feet about this - it really isn't that bad, its just we had no idea where we were going and whether there was even an exit!!! 

Adventure rating - 5/10
Fitness Level - 4/10 
Fear rating - 5/10 (mainly because we had no idea you could actually get out)
Cost per two people - Motorbike $4, Fuel $2, $2 Entry and $0.50 for parking fees! If you want a tour from the kids we've heard its around $5

Crawling out of the exit and the end of our first cave adventure

​5 - Kampots' Secret Waterfall

We've left the best until last! Kampots' Secret Waterfall. This day fully deserves its own story and you certainly need a lengthy description to help you get there. To read about Kampots' biggest adventure click the button below. (Or you can watch the video below)

Secret waterfall