Mmm have the most wonderfull taste of garlic and ginger in my mouth right now after an excellent meal at Happa Restaurant in Sihanoukville in Cambodia. Yum yum...! We have definitely had some really nice food over here, however, we are a bit tired of fried rice and noodles and thursday and friday we havde gone out for pizza instead (but good pizzas!!! Thin and crispy and enormous! Can't believe I managed to eat such a big pizza!) Well...

Wednesday night we left Siem Reap on a night bus for Sihanoukville where we arrive 6:30 thursday morning - nice bus except for the fact that somebody stole Anders' sony walkman! Bummer...! Anyway, along with a guy we met on the bus we went to Serendipity Beach to find ourselves a guesthouse. Man, as we stepped out the bus we were almost attacked by numerous annoying tuk-tuk and moto-drivers all hassling to get business. And then the taxidriver we finally hired tried to drop us off two different places that absolutely were not the place we wanted to go. Finally we ended up the right place only to find that the intended guesthouse did not exist any more but then we found another nice place instead - Cloud 9 - with small bungalows with a terrace with sea view:) What more can you ask for? Thursday was spent chilling at the beach in the sun - or as much chilling as one can do with 10 beachsellers around you most of the time!!! Some of them were quite sweet and we did end up buying stupid things from them... Darn it... But oh well. Thurdays afternoon I spent watching scuba diving DVD's and taking a few tests for my diving update and then we went out for dinner with 3 other backpackers that I met at the diving place. Nice.

Friday morning we went to see Olivier's wife and children (For those who do not know - Oli is a guy I met in England after high school who I have not seen for 10yrs and for the first time in 7 years we are in the same country and city by a freak coincidence in Cambodia - recently he got a job in Kep, however so he wasn't in the city) which was interesting and a bit weird!!! Tomorrow we are actually heading down to Kep to meet up with Oli himself and see where he is working and how he is doing! Yikes! Anyway, friday afternoon I had my confined water dives 4+5 in a pool which was fun and it was nice just getting a refreshment course of the skills required for scuba - extremely uncomfortable just in the beginning just as I expected but everything went smooth as soon as I (again) felt that indeed it is possible to breathe underwater with scuba and that I can actually clear my mask without getting water in my eyes!!!!

Saturday morning I went off for a two day daving trip - just myself and the instructor!!! Unfortunately nobody else signed up for the trip - freaky as they had just had 2 trips with 5-6 people before I arrived and the next few days they have two trips with at least 2 people on it... Anyway, it was ok. The instructor was nice and we got along really great. And it was just absolutely fabulous getting under the water again! This is why we do it! Fish, fish, live everywhere. It still amazes me how peaceful it is under water - how symbiotic it is. Big schools of small fish living around corals along with bigger fish and crabs etc etc. Beautiful colors and so much life. Pretty much whereever you look there is something alive looking at you. We saw a cuttlefish - which sort of looks like an octopus crawling along the bottom of the ocean on its side like a hovercraft but with a tutu-skirt on! unfortunately we forgot the camera on this dive... typical... This is also the dive where I made a new friend - a bat fish. In the beginning of the dive we saw a school of about 10-15 of these from which 3 (1+2) separated. The lonely fish ended up following us for the rest of the dive. Whenever I looked over my right shoulder... there it was peacefully swimming along. And when I stopped and hovered it would swim right up to me and sort of just look at me relaxed - it was only about 40cm away from me. Wauw... cool! Saturday was supposed to include 2 day dives (my upgrade dives - I am now officially a Certified OpenWater Diver!!!) and then a fun dive at night. And at 6:30pm we went in the water fully equipped and started going down. But at 2m depth I already felt a big pain in my right ear and I couldn't equalize. We tried surfacing and descending slowly several times but nothing worked. In the end we went back on the boat to rinse my ears and wait half an hour to see if it cleared up... Which it didn't!!! I tried washing my ears with fresh water, slamming my head, shaking my head, eating (vigorous jaw movements) and two different kinds of eardrops... But alas no success and we had to give up the night dives:( sniff!!!! I was so looking forward to it. Of course it didn't help the mood when being on the boat finally got to me and I had to lean over the side and spew my stomach out for all I was worth.... Yuk. Thankfully it cleared my stomach and I felt fine afterwards.. Well, after I managed to blow out leftovers from my nose. Yuk yuk and mega YUK! And sunday dives did bring a few acid refluxes while diving, smack smack.

The night on the boat was as experience in itself. We slept on mattresses right on the deck and at midnight we got hit by an enourmous thunderstorm! Man, don't think I have ever experienced anything like it!!! Huge lightening and eardeafening thundercracks! It went on for more than 1.5 hour and then it just started raining. like crazy. like cats and dogs crazy! It just kept pouring and pouring and pouring until 5am and there was so much wind the rain got pushed under the plastic coverings on the side of the boat. Thankfully I had a big blanket under which I could curl up quite comfortably and not get wet but my Stephen King book wasn't as lucky.... It got quite wet and is presently twice as big as it originally was... And a bit heavier... Hoping for it to dry but still reading in it wet...! Sunday (today) then brought 3 dives rather than just two and again the dives were really nice - of course the best on was the one where we AGAIN forgot to bring the stupid camera. On the last two dives I got better at handling the camera and I think it may have gotten a few good shots - I got better but the fish didn't. They kep zooming away riiiight when I had focused on them! Darn it! He he:)

Now tired and dizzy - did fine on the boat this morning but after getting on land I feel weird. Everything is turning and spinning a bit and I feel like I am still on the boat and loose my balance at weird times. Hopefully it will pass by tomorrow:)

Also a bit looking forward to going home - full of experiences and impressions - just about enough for now! Miss you all and hope you are doing fine! Hugs from Mette:)