A female backpacker who was caught spraying graffiti on a bridge faced instant karma - when she was made to repaint it and pay for the materials.

CCTV footage shows the scruffy tourist in a purple shirt and denim shorts riding a rented motorcycle across the Prek Kampong Bay Bridge in Kampot Cambodia, on March 6.

The woman, who also broke traffic rules by driving without a helmet, pulled up to the side of the bridge and was seen taking out a spray paint can from her bag.

She then daubed the yellow-and-black concrete barrier with her graffiti tag before hastily departing the scene.

However, outraged police swiftly identified the woman as the license plate on her two-wheeler was visible in the security video.

She allegedly whined that the tag was 'street art' but officers detained her and hauled her back to the bridge to restore the defaced section, bearing the cost of the paint herself.

Photos show police sternly monitoring the young woman as she applied a fresh coat of yellow paint with a roller. She was then fined and relesed.

Major General Mao Chandmeterey, Kampot Provincial Police Commissioner, said: 'My country and province have proper laws and customs. You cannot do something like this arbitrarily. You have to come back and clean the bridge to make it look like it was before.

'The authorities are going to take the foreign woman who sprayed paint on the railing of the Prek Kampong Bay Bridge to follow the legal procedures and clean it as it was before.'

Officers did not give the nationality of the offender. They said she was allowed to continue with her holiday.

Major General Mao added: 'The woman said that she believed her vandalism was street art. She said that it was allowed in her country. However, we educated her about the Khmer laws and she accepted that she had made a big mistake.'

Kampot province on the south coast of Cambodia has experienced significant growth in tourism in recent years, becoming an increasingly popular destination for both domestic and international travellers.

In the first half of 2024, the province welcomed more than 1.3 million visitors, including 62,000 from abroad, marking a 30 per cent increase on the same period in 2023.