We awoke in Can Tho a few days ago with a simple mission - get as far into Cambodia as possible.

We started with an early morning bus to the port town of Rach Gia, where we stretched our legs with a stroll along the river and enjoyed our last Vietnamese filtered coffee :(

Our next bus hurled us towards a nice little beachy town called Ha Tien, only a kilometre from the border crossing. Sadly we didn't have time to see much of Ha Tien, so hired a couple of moto taxis to double us through the border and into Cambodia.

We got through pretty much hassle free, apart from almost running out of money. Thinking our Vietnamese Dong would be useless on the other side, and with no other options, we agreed to let the Vietnamese customs officer exchange our Dong into Cambodian Riel. Let's just say that the official might have had a few extra beers with dinner that night... When it came to paying for visas, we were asked if we'd pay in 'Dong or Dollars', when we had only Cambodian Real! They eventually settled with their own currency, although after all this kerfuffle we had nothing left to pay our taxi fare!

Our solution was to ride for an hour or so into Kampot, apparently the only place with an ATM along the entire south coast of Cambodia! After a long and bumpy ride we settled into a neat little guest house, and later ran into our moto taxi drivers, who had decided to spend their profits on a night out in town.

Kampot turned out to be a strange place, with a kind of hidden charm. There seemed to be more of a divide between locals and foreigners than in China or Vietnam. For instance, our guesthouse was one of about 5 or 6, established outside of the city centre along a street created by foreigners.. for foreigners. Thinking we wouldn't eat much besides rice and soy sauce for the next few months, we took advantage of the western-style hospitality.

We did a little bit of exploring, hiring bikes for a ride along the pristine Teuk Chhou River. At one point we found ourselves at a dead end, with our path continuing along the other side of the river. Luckily there was an old woman with a little wooden row boat ready to take us and our bikes across to the other side. On the way back to Kampot we realised we were really in the tropics when it started to rain... and rain, and rain and rain! We found shelter in a beautiful riverside resort, which was managed by a French guy. Naturally we practiced our French with all the Cambodian staff while enjoying a delicious seafood lunch seasoned with world famous Kampot Pepper!

Our last stop was to catch a massage with a couple of blind masseurs. 'Kampot Massage by the Blind' was set up to provide jobs for the less fortunate and is a great initiative. These people that take nothing for granted 'see' through their hands and we can say gave us the most physical and effective massages either of us have ever had.

From here we are planning on getting our hands dirty with some volunteer work at an agricultural development project based in southern Cambodia. We are really excited about helping out there and are looking forward to telling you all about it in our next blog.