We took the easiest, best ferry ever from Phu Quoc Island to the mainland, Ha Tien. It was then a wait around for a few hours doing nothing much at all, as Ha Tien is not terribly exciting.

A 90-year-old woman then took us in her van and drove like a 100-year-old through the border to Kampot in Cambodia. I say drove, but as we were about to set off she said first of all no air con. as she had a dodgy battery and then she discovered a flat tyre. So off back to wait for the flat tyre to be fixed. We watched as a couple of guys came on their motorbike and took of the tyre and then went to the shop to get another replacement tyre. As we left for the second time we said "that was lucky this hadn't happened on route" as clearly they don't believe in carrying spare tyres.

Then, as we knew we would, we experienced the corruption. Namely we gave our elderly driver a little extra US$ and she took as though the border and organised our VISA into Cambodia. We didn't even have front up and prove that we were even there and those were our passports. It was all OK because they "Knew her".

Our first impressions of Cambodia are poverty; as along the sides of the road people live in shacks and I say shacks but they are less than that, as they are a bit of iron thrown on as the roof and if you are lucky, more iron lent up as walls. The people on the other hand are very friendly, welcoming and genuinely nice. Quite amazing considering what their country has recently gone through, (more on that to come no doubt, in my Phnom Penh blog).

After arriving in Kampot we changed onto a small bus and headed to Sihanoukville on the coast of Cambodia. One of the bus's passengers commented that he was "going to get stoned and drunk and party". Yes, this is the kind of place we were heading to. Having said that we had booked to stay at Otres 2 which is at the other end of the beach to the town. This proved to be the best choice as we learnt later. The bus dropped us off and off we lugged our packs down a bumpy, sandy road to where we were staying for a couple of nights at a bungalow just across the road from the beach. It was a nice beach with gentle waves with guesthouses, bars and restaurants lining the edge.

A day was spent lounging around (again) and sampling some fantastic pizza and limoncello at a little Italian gem of a restaurant.

After a bit of research, we decided the best of the 15 or so islands off Cambodia to go to would be Koh Rong. I convinced Josh that we should not take our packs but just our day packs. So, we left them at our bungalow and jumped (I say jumped as you literally have to from the wharf) onto a ferry from the town. The town as we passed through had Casinos aimed at Chinese and we were glad that we didn't stay there or indeed Otres 1, as we would have clearly had no sleep due to the pumping music until 5am.

Koh Rong is stunning. This is the kind of beach we have been looking for the whole trip. Squeaky (yes it really does squeak when you walk on it) white sand with turquoise crystal-clear water, fringed with swaying coconut trees and dotted with bungalows with next to no people. Paradise. Apparently, these islands are what the islands in Thailand were like 15 years ago.

We spent a couple of days doing not a lot (again!). We did manage to see the plankton at night sparkling in the water which was pretty cool.

The second day brought with it a lot of rain, not surprising given it's rainy season, so the following wet day we got a ferry (well two actually, as in Cambodia you never quite know what's going on and how, where and when you will get there).

Back again to Otres 2 and pasta at the same restaurant where we also had room temperature red wine which was bliss, as I had given up as we always had chilled (yip chilled) or off red wine. We were also given free crème brûlée and bread drizzled with olive oil which was a treat. All thanks to my enthusiastic review on Trip Advisor from the previous visit.

A van then took us back to Kampot (a better place to go to Phnom Penh from). This riverside town, with streets rimmed by dilapidated shophouse architecture, has a dreamy quality; as if someone pressed the snooze button a few years back and the entire town forgot to wake up.

Our accommodation the "Magic Sponge" was great, not at all what I was expecting. Quite modern and clean, and no dodgy illicitness given the weird name, at all. We did however have a run in with one of the employees who then ended up getting fired because of it. A little bit drastic we thought.

That evening we went on the sunset cruise on the Kompong Bay river. Unfortunately, due to the rain the sunset wasn't very spectacular but the view (just us two on a local fishing boat) was very serene with the coconut trees lining the river with the odd hut scattered amongst them. We did get to see fireflies which was quite exciting! On our way back, the captain pulled over to the bank as about a dozen fireflies were blinking on and off in the bushes. He grabbed one and put it in our hands. Basically, they are the size of a house fly with a blinking abdomen.

The following day we took a remork (tuk-tuk) to visit the pepper plantations which Kampot is famous for. The climate of Kampot Province offers perfect conditions for growing pepper and the quartz content of the soil in the foothills of the Elephant Mountains helps to give Kampot pepper its unique taste. Quite interesting as I didn't know that black, red and white pepper is all from the same green pepper! It's just that they are aged, or in the case of red which is the oldest, the skin is peeled and it is then white pepper. We had a great chat with a German volunteer and I think our driver was giving up on us ever returning, as he was snoozing in his hammock when we finally got back to the remork.

It was then time to have the famous Kep crab with pepper. So we headed to Kep which is sleepy seaside town near Kampot. We cruised part some of the crumbling remains of the abandoned colonial and modernist villas. The original site was carved out of the jungle by Cambodia's French colonialists who wanted somewhere to retreat as respite from the capital, Phnom Penh. The town developed into an opulent seaside resort, where the well-to-do would come to undertake such activities as sailing, swimming, socialising and even gambling in the town's casino. Kep was the place to be and soon Cambodia's king, Norodom Sihanouk (who was an admirer of the French and particularly their architecture), his entourage and other affluent Phnom Penhois were frequenting the small seaside town on a regular basis. During the first half of the 19th century numerous villas and mansions were designed and constructed along and close to Kep's coastline. No expense was spared and glorious French-style villas began to spring up throughout. This was Kep's heyday and many of the villas played host to dazzling society parties where film stars such as Catherine Deneuve mingled with diplomats and the Cambodian elite. Cambodia gained independence from the French in 1953 but this didn't stop the continuation of the lavish construction in Kep. Far from it in fact. This was the golden age of New Khmer Architecture; a unique architectural style that combined Modernism with elements of traditional Khmer design, and which was championed personally by King Sihanouk and his favourite architect, Vann Molyvann. Moving away from the traditional French style, many more villas and mansions were built in the years immediately after independence and life throughout the 1960s was swinging in Kep. But this was also the era of the Vietnam War and it was inevitable that Cambodia, and in particular places close to the Vietnamese border (such as Kep), would be drawn into it and 1970 marked the beginning of the end for this fashionable seaside resort. For the communist Khmer Rouge, decadent Kep stood for everything they despised and hated and the town's remaining civilians, along with its lavish architecture, were ruthlessly targeted when the town finally came under their control in 1975. Unquestionably, they undertook numerous atrocities against the town's final residents, including rounding up the remaining French-speaking Cambodians and taking them to the local petrol station, which was then set on fire with the victims inside it. What is not 100% clear, however, is whether the Khmer Rouge was responsible for the destruction of the town's villas and mansions. Most articles I have read on the subject state that the Khmer Rouge viewed the properties with the same hatred and contempt they reserved for Cambodia's upper class and therefore they inflicted mindless acts of vandalism upon them. Given the political persuasion of the Khmer Rouge, this opinion makes perfect sense, but another point of view is that those in control of Kep during this time took a more pragmatic approach and realised that the villas were, in fact, useful and could be used as living quarters, for storage and as barracks and therefore they left them relatively intact. This is also a sensible suggestion but given that there is a distinct lack of official records from this period in Cambodia's history, it is difficult to give a decisive answer. I would imagine that there was a bit of both going on, but what is certain is that although Kep was liberated by the Vietnamese in 1979, the area around the town remained one of the last strongholds of the Khmer Rouge right up until 1998 and this, combined with neglect and abandonment, local looting and the encroachment of the surrounding jungle, eventually caused the ultimate decay of these (now) wonderfully atmospheric villas and mansions.

With this sour taste in our mouths, we went to the Crab Market to try out the local delicacy. After purchasing our kilo of blue crabs, we waited for them to be cooked with whole green pepper in a mysterious but divine red sauce.

A quick stop was had at the salt fields which were quite disappointing as there was no salt to see at this time of year. Then back to Kampot for an early night before our bus to Phnom Penh.