Kampot
From dKosopedia
Kampot is a southern province of Cambodia. Its capital is Kampot, a quiet riverside town just a few kilometers from the Gulf of Thailand. Kampot often serves as a tourist base for exploring Bokor National Park and the Bokor hill station, a former French resort. The beachtown of Kep is also only about an hour away. In his 1998 nonfiction book Canbodia: Report From a Stricken Land, author Henry Kamm describes Kep as "an indolently sleepy fishy village."
Before the wars that ravaged Indochina, Kampot province was best known for its famous pepper, which is still widely available in Cambodia. In 1993 and 1994, years after the war, Kampot was the scene of several ambushes and the kidnapping of three foreigners.
Kampot made the international news in 2005 because of reports of a case of avian flu and that the provicne was a good place to commit suicide.
On February 2, 2005, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health reported a laboratory confirmed case of human infection with H5 avian influenza in a 25 year old woman from Kampot. She had developed respiratory symptoms on January 21, 2005. This is the first human case of H5 infection reported from Cambodia.
Kampot made the international news on November 9, 2005 in a Reuters news story of the law suit filed by Kampot provincial governor Puth Candarith against Roger Graham for disseminating false information and defaming the province in his web sites: www.euthanasiaincambodia.com and www.asian-hearts.com. Californian Graham owns the Blue Mountain Coffee and Internet Cafe in Kampot. In a November 25, 2005 report in Reuters Mr. Graham has expressed a degree of regret over the unwanted negative publicity but also principled defiance, saying, "I am an old man in a small town in Cambodia. I don't want to cause any trouble for anybody. But I do have my own beleifs which, if I can, I will tell people about."
Districts in Kampot province
- Angkor Chey
- Banteay Meas
- Chhuk
- Chum Kiri
- Dang Tong
- Kampong Trach
- Kampot
- Kampong Bay
Sources
- "Turning Bandits into Soldiers." The Economist August 6, 1994.
- "Avian Influenza, Viet Nam and Cambodia - Update." Weekly Epidemiological Record. Vol 80, Issue 6. Pp. 49-50. February 11, 2005.
- "One-way ticket to Cambodia, please..." Reuters. November 9, 2005.
- Ek Madra. "Californian Defends "Suicide Tourism" in Cambodia". Reuters. November 25, 2005.
- Henry Kamm. 1998. Cambodia: Report From a Stricken Land. New York: Arcade Publishing. ISBN 1559705078.