A peaceful town, a hostel in the middle of the rural countryside and our bungalow perched over the slow moving river.

The area of Kampot is an idyllic setting with plenty to do when you explore with a scooter. James had booked a hostel called Ganesha which was out of the way but lovely and had a friendly hostess, a stoner owner and some friendly travellers. Our first priority was to hire a scooter and find the orphanage. The Australian couple had their whole family visiting so it was a hive of activity when we arrived, paper aeroplanes were being launched, paints were drawn and some dance moves of varying quality were performed sporadically throughout the day! James and I helped a few children with their English, we did a bit of volleyball coaching, I danced and James got taught a Cambodian drafts game. The children were friendly and happy despite some horror stories we heard about their upbringing and life before the orphanage.

We took the bike to Bokor national park, which is a beautiful drive; with a smooth paved road winding around a mountain. At the top of the mountain there was a huge casino and hotel complex that looked decidedly out of place. The other buildings were from the French colonial era that had been left abandoned and unused. We rode to an almost dried up waterfall that was pretty nice and took the wooden canoe around the backwaters of our hostel for the afternoon. As usual I was left to all the paddling and James did nothing but talk and tell me where to go.. or was it the other way around? The canoe ride was tranquil and had some beautiful scenery. We enjoyed our own ride so much that the following day we took the sunset tour with four other travellers and spent most of our time chatting!

The food at Ganesha was fresh, healthy and delicious and we ate there every breakfast and dinner. However, the winner of good food in Cambodia has to be the gorgeous crab in Kampot green pepper sauce. Restaurants lined the sea in the nearby town of Kep and we took the 40 minute bumpy scooter ride twice just for the delicious crab. We did see some sights along the way, our favourite being the, not so secret lake. The lake was impressive but what amazed us more was just a short ride away from the town we generated so much more interest from the locals. It reminded us of India and Fiji, all the children ran out of their house to wave and shout 'hello'!

We had a lovely time in Kampot and met some really nice people, so pleased we decided to go and obviously we will remember the lovely visit to the orphanage.