Kampot, Cambodia tide times

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived.

Model-derived from a global ocean grid. Useful indication; expect about ±45 minutes on average vs. a local harmonic gauge, individual stations vary widely. See /methodology for per-region detail. Not for navigation.

Conditions as of 11:00 local time. Refreshes daily.

Predictions: Open-Meteo Marine (MeteoFrance SMOC, 0.08° grid) — heights relative to MSL (not chart datum / LAT). Model-derived. · Not for navigation.

The angler tradition for major/minor fishing windows: major ≈3-hour windows around moon transit and opposition; minor ≈2-hour windows around moonrise and moonset. Times are Asia/Phnom Penh local. Folk tradition, not a scientific forecast.

Kampot sits on the Kampot River 5 km inland from the Gulf of Thailand, in a bend wide enough for boat traffic and overlooked on both sides by the farms and hills of Kampot Province. The town's pace is deliberately slow; it has been a traveller and expat base since the early 2000s and has resisted the overdevelopment that transformed Sihanoukville to the northwest into a casino-and-concrete strip. The French colonial quarter on the eastern bank of the river — shophouses, the old market, the colonial-era roundabout — gives the town its visual identity. The waterfront promenade runs along the river from the new bridge south to the old town. The river is tidal for several kilometres upstream of its mouth. On a spring flood tide, the current reverses and carries brackish water from the Gulf of Thailand past the old market area and toward the bridge. Kayakers and paddleboarders who launch from the riverside guesthouses use this pattern deliberately: paddle upstream on the flood, turn around at slack water when the current pauses, and ride the ebb back. Evening boat cruises that run from the Kampot riverside operate on the same principle — upstream on the flood, downstream on the ebb, timed to catch the golden light over the Bokor Mountain massif. The river tidal reversal at the old town quay typically arrives 1 to 2 hours after the predicted coastal high; the river carries both the lag and the attenuation of the signal upstream. Bokor National Park, 37 km by road up the mountain to the west, holds the decaying Bokor Hill Station — a French colonial hotel and casino at 1,080 m, abandoned twice, the first time during the Khmer Rouge period and the second after a concession developer built a new casino resort adjacent to the ruins. The original stone buildings are still standing; the jungle has not reclaimed them because the plateau is too exposed and too cold. The road to the summit is the most dramatic drive in southern Cambodia. The pepper farms on the hillsides immediately surrounding the Kampot River delta produce Kampot pepper, which holds a protected geographical indication (PGI) status and is one of the few agricultural products from Southeast Asia with that designation. The farms grow both black and red pepper on traditional wooden poles; visits to working farms are available through guesthouses and the Kampot pepper cooperative. The pepper sold at the farms and at the Kampot market is genuine; quality varies, and buying directly from a named farm is the standard recommendation. Shore anglers work the riverside bank below the old market and the tidal margins for mixed freshwater and brackish species — snakehead, tilapia, and on the spring flood, saltwater intruders including snapper and barracuda moving upstream in the tidal current. The tidal front between salt and fresh water is a productive boundary layer wherever it sits on a given day. Predictions on this page come from Open-Meteo Marine (gridded model, ±45 min / ±0.2–0.3 m). The river tidal signal lags the model's open-coast prediction by 1 to 2 hours upstream at the old town quay. The Kampot International Dark Sky Reserve, designated for the region's exceptionally low light pollution, makes the clear-weather nights above the Bokor plateau some of the best astronomical viewing in mainland Southeast Asia. Amateur astronomers bring telescopes to the plateau; the Kampot guesthouses can connect visitors with local guides who know the best plateau viewpoints accessible by motorbike after dark. The night sky above the Kampot River — away from town, looking toward the Cardamom foothills — is also excellent in the dry season.