Ream National Park, Where Cambodia's Coast Goes Wild

Mangrove channels, birdsong, and a near-empty island, a half-hour from the airport and nothing like it.

Half an hour from Sihanoukville's airport, the built coast simply stops and a wilder one begins. Ream National Park protects a long stretch of mangrove, estuary, forest and island around the mouth of the Prek Toek Sap river, and it is the easiest place on this coast to trade the beach bar for birdsong.

Into the mangroves

The classic way in is by boat. Narrow wooden craft run from the fishing village at the park's edge, down the brown, glassy river and out through the mangrove channels, where the water mirrors the trees and the only sound is the engine and the birds. Kingfishers and herons work the banks, eagles ride the thermals above, and macaques crash about in the branches. In the right season and with a little luck, dolphins are sometimes seen out where the river meets the sea.

Koh Thmei

At the park's seaward edge lies Koh Thmei, a low, forested island with a single simple eco-lodge and a great deal of nothing else. The beaches are not the powder white of the big islands, but the snorkelling is quiet and the birdwatching is some of the best on the coast. It is a place for hammocks, long walks and early nights, reached by a short boat ride and very little fuss.

A coast still working

Ream is not a manicured park. Fishing villages sit inside its boundaries, boats come and go, and the line between the wild and the lived-in is pleasantly blurred. That is part of its honesty. You are a guest in a working landscape, not a visitor to a stage set.

How to be here

Go early, when the birds are busy and the light is soft on the water. Arrange a boat through the park rangers or your guesthouse, bring binoculars and plenty of water, and leave the mangroves exactly as you found them.

Published by Invest Beachfront, a private practice for titled beachfront land on Cambodia's coast. We write the places first; the collection is for later.