Beauty. Tragedy. Healing. Kampong Trach tells the storey of Cambodia.

Kampong Trach, about 40km from city centre Kampot, was once one of the most famous areas in Kampot Province. Its natural beauty led to the development of a bustling trade centre during French colonisation.

In the late 1960s the Khmer Rouge came. Then the American bombings followed. The area was devastated. Our peaceful countryside became a war zone. The dramatic limestone cliffs and caves—once popular tourist attractions—became hiding places for villagers, like my family. I was born here in the 1980s during the civil war. We lived under the Khmer Rouge until they finally surrendered in 1995.

Today, development has been slow, but the area is healing. Kampong Trach survived. The caves and shrines are now memorials. The rice fields are full of buffalo, and the mountains reflect in the lakes built during the Khmer Rouge period.

I’d love to show you Kampong Trach—an authentic side of rural Cambodia and, in my view, one of the most beautiful areas in the province. A place now being re-discovered by tourism.

During our day trip we will explore the stunning limestone cliffs and the sacred caves inside them. We'll continue through mountains that stand over the reservoirs build in the Khmer Rouge period. We will continue down country roads, seeing rural villages, rice fields, and local life as we pass through the famous buffalo fields, where locals put their livestock out to graze. Finally, we'll head to Phnom Teuk Thom Between Kampot and Ha Tien Vietnam border, where we will take kayak though stunning caves filled with water.