Day 61-64 Sihanoukville - Kampot - Kep

Our next stop in amazing Cambodia was the beach side town of Sihanoukville. This place was alive and humming with party seekers...its definitely on the cards to becoming one of the biggest holiday destinations in asia. The beaches around Sihanoukville were surprisingly beautiful with white squeaky sand. Mike and I enjoyed some beach time, enjoyed watching the All Blacks cream the Irish, snuck into the fancy resort down the  road to have a swim at their exclusive beach, found an awesome Italian restaurant, fought of ladies wanting to "thread" all the  hair off my entire body...paint my toes...or make me a bracelet, and I almost tried to steal a gorgeous 4 month old baby who sat with me through dinner sucking on her fingers (much like another adorable little girl). After our cuddles her mother put her in a front pouch and jumped on the back of a motorbike with her 4 year old  son, husband and mum...it will never cease to amaze me what they can fit on a motorbike. After three days at the beach we made our way to the french riverside town off Kampot for an overnight  stay. Arriving in the afternoon we biked around the crumbling city and decided to do a sunset tour on the river. After our tour we found a  restaurant run by kiwis and had our first roast New Zealand lamb in what seemed like years. The next morning we were on the road again, 2 hours later we were back on the coast in the stunning seaside fishing village of Kep. Kep is famous in Cambodia for its seafood and crab, restaurants line part of the shore where you can sit and literally watch the fisherman catching your meal.  The sea breeze was a welcome change, in this lush paradise that I imagined was not dissimilar to Mission Bay 50 years ago (just a cambodian version). Kep was the "it" place for the french and wealthy cambodians before the war, and still hasn't fully recovered but is well on its way. It sees only 50 tourists per high season and the locals are so eager to learn english. The children wave out to you every time you pass, people are so willing to help and ask questions about where we have come from, you barely have to smile at someone and they beam at you as though you are long lost family and its an invitation to improve their english skills. We met a young a man working at our guest house who had been learning english for 5 months and he was amazing. He travelled to Kampot once a week for an hour to his english  lessons, and he had 1 million questions for Mike and I. He was from a family of 5 and his parents could only afford to educate the oldest  son ($5 US tuition fee a day) however he was glad he didn't have to carry the burden of having to do well really well at uni to please his hardworking parents. As we continued chatting our van to take us across the boarder into Vietnam arrived, and like many of the Cambodian men our new friend swung Mikes 22kg pack across his 155cm and 60kg frame and hiked off towards the van saying "don't worry its not heavy, its good practice for me because Im going to learn english and travel the world". Within that sentence I later realised it was the perfect metaphor for this country and summary of our visit here, he spoke on behalf of all young Cambodian's translating to ...our past is heavy but we can carry it, the weight helps us realise how easy reaching our potential can be. Mike and I are officially in love with these people, there smiles, friendliness, positivity and resilience far outweigh the negative of Cambodia.