Kep

A small coastal town on the Gulf of Thailand in southern Cambodia, Kep was developed as a seaside resort by the French colonial administration and later by the Cambodian elite, though many of its modernist villas were gutted during the Khmer Rouge period and remain in picturesque ruin. The town is celebrated for its crab market, where freshly caught blue swimming crabs are prepared with Kampot pepper and eaten at seafront restaurants built on stilts over the water. Kep National Park occupies the forested hill directly behind town.