This is a very beautiful ride on road 48, going East you’ll have the Cardamon mountains (“Krâvanh” in khmer) on your left and Botum Sakor national park on your right. This is probably the longest stretch of untouched jungle we ever saw in more than ten months around South East Asia.

Crossing from the southernmost border with Thailand makes immediately clear you entered in a less developed country. The road is not so well sealed as it was in Thailand and there are almost no crops or plantation, this is indeed an area where landmines are still a problem.

5 km outside Koh Khong heading east there’s a very easy climb up to 200msl, and than slightly downhill to the tiny village of Tatai, which has a guest house, two food stall (very bad in my opinion) and a big waterfall if you’re up for an off road detour.Just left the village there’s a steeper but short climb up to 400msl and than downhill, 40km to the next village, Trapeang Rung (this is actually the name of the river, on some maps the village is called Phumi Chrang Khpos), where there is a community based tourism association.

Here comes the flat and the real Cambodian feeling, rice paddies, water buffaloes and wooden houses on pillars. 36 super-easy kilometers of quiet paved road lead us to Srae Ambel. There are houses here and, though not many, some feeding and water options. Food is mostly crap but hey, this is Cambodia.

Srae Ambel is indeed a nice town, set on a small hill overlooking the Sre Ambel river. Two guesthouses are in the center of the village, atop the hill, and few more a little bit further out of town. There’s an interesting Buddhist temple, the usual market, the usual fried rice and noodle soup.

Luckily, this ugly stretch terminates near the village of Prey Nob, where, despite what google says, there are quite a few guesthouses and finally a decent restaurant inside the gas station before the crossroad.

And indeed the road splits here, the Highway 4 leading south-west to busy Sihanoukville, the new resort town of Cambodia. As you may guess we skip that and head East instead, following National Highway 3, to Kampot.

The traffic lightens noticeably, finally, on the left, the Bokor cliffs emerge in their majesty. Although the road runs along the coast, there are very few spots from where the sea is visible, through this 58km of flat road there are basically no places to get drinks or food.

But Kampot is not that far and there will be all the western comfort you would like there.