At the Kep West Wellness Center, the facial starts in the kitchen rather than a jar. Mango for vitamin C, pressed cucumber for the tonic, yogurt, a little lavender. Sam Taroth has already tried yoga and massage here. This time she hands her face to Mao Sophear, the center's Senior Spa Therapist.

Mao Kanha and Phanha Kann, two Cambodians from Kep West, won over cocktail fans at Sora, Rosewood Phnom Penh, with three Kep-inspired drinks. Now served in Kep

Cambodian fighter Sam Tharoth describes her stay at Knai Bang Chatt in Kep: colour instead of grey, 1960s Khmer modernist rooms, and a sea view that kept her phone in her bag.

On the Saturday afternoon of World Wellness Weekend, the programme leaves the yoga mat and slips into the water. A slow kayak through one of the last intact mangrove systems on the Kep coast, with a planting stop along the way, is the moment the weekend turns from taking care of oneself to giving something back.

A wellness weekend is only as good as its dinners. From 18 to 20 September, the kitchens of The Wave and The Strand serve three vegetarian fine-dining menus built for the occasion — light enough to sleep on, generous enough to feel like an event, and rooted in a kitchen philosophy Kep West has held for years: balanced, local, and never copied from a book.

Most hotels add wellness. Knai Bang Chatt was wellness before the word meant anything — a handful of 1960s seaside villas designed to slow people down. When World Wellness Weekend opens on 18 September, the venue will not be adapting to the programme. The programme is simply a description of the venue.

On Friday 18 September 2026, as the light drops over the garden of Knai Bang Chatt, Lana Yang will strike the first of her Tibetan singing bowls to open World Wellness Weekend at Kep West Wellness. Behind that single, long note lies one of the oldest healing practices known to humanity — and one of the fastest-growing in the modern wellness world.

From 18 to 20 September 2026, Kep West Wellness turns the pier, the garden and the dining rooms of Knai Bang Chatt into a single, unhurried invitation: come and remember what it feels like to have nothing to do but breathe, move and eat well by the sea. Sunrise session on the Kep West pier There is a particular quality of light on the Kep coast just after six in the morning — soft, low, the colour of weak tea — and it is in this light that Kep West Wellness will open its firs

By the sea, three old villas built for a governor, a relative of the king and a senior customs official tell, between them, the whole fate of Kep: colonial splendour, the war that swallowed everything, then a patient rebirth carried by lovers of Khmer heritage. This is the story of Knai Bang Chatt.

This week, members of the Knai Bang Chatt and Kep West team travelled to Sonja Kill Memorial Hospital in Sihanoukville for a hands-on First Aid and Basic Life Support (BLS) training, building the skills to respond confidently in a real emergency.

In early August, the Kep West and Knai Bang Chatt teams took part in a hands-on sustainability training led by longtime partner Ecolab, focused on eco-responsible housekeeping and F&B operations.

Kep & Gastronomy: August Tides, Fresh Catch brings Kep's finest seafood to the table at Crab & Co

Imported French bouchot mussels, white wine, herbs — and the fries that complete the picture.

The sun had barely finished its work when the knives came out. It dropped fast, the way it always does over the ocean — no drawn-out farewell, just a slow burn of coral and ash-grey that lasted twenty minutes or so before the water turned dark and still.

Some places are visited. Others are moved through slowly, almost in silence. Knai Bang Chatt belongs to the second kind. In Kep, far from the noise of Phnom Penh, the monsoon repaints the coastline every year in deep, unhurried colors — the dark green of the palm groves, the wet gold of late afternoons, the near-black blue of storms passing offshore. For one season only, Knai Bang Chatt opens its heritage villas to Cambodian residents and expats for something increasingly rar

This July, Crab & Co brings French Gastronomy Month to the shores of Kep — and we open the series with the most iconic gesture of the French table. There are dishes that require no introduction, only silence, and perhaps a cold glass of Champagne. The Caviar TSF Oscietra belongs to that rare category: a plate that quietly embodies everything the French culinary tradition holds sacred — restraint, ceremony, and an almost ruthless pursuit of quality.

You must see it at least once. Not in a photo, not on a screen — for real, standing there facing the gulf, with the monsoon wind pushing clouds across the sky like it has somewhere to be. Kep in green season is not the Kep of postcards. It's better than that.