Cambodia

Siem Reap The signs of wealthy Europeans and Asians investing in this gateway to Angkor Wat surprise me around every corner.  Big Asian tour busses passing the narrow streets lined with bars, shops, restaurants and cafes. Some times I feel like I'm in Mexico, or france or who know where with the architecture  and menu items.  So besides the breathtaking Wats at Angkor we are also enjoying some Mexican food and margarita  in Siem Riep, cambodia.  Getting there felt like one scam after another but on the bright side it was filled with lessons for way to avoid future ones.   Pot in Kampot A melting pot in what feels like a big small town.  Profound smiles of a contrasting face with fear, uncertainty and a depth beyond my previous experience.  I see Cambodia as a nation of fresh opportunity in a new birthed life of freedom, liberty, something so appropriately appreciated.   There's the mountain monkey man who's swinging beside me in the hammock outside our river front guesthouse.  He's funny, even now I hear his deep laughs and even giggles mixed into his French with possibly a Laos accent.  But he grew up in France.  His dark skin and facial hair against the stark whiteness of the hammock in which he swings like a monkey boy  Tarzan.  My eyes know where I am, overlooking the river and mountains of Bokor National Park  we explored just yesterday by motorbike.  I hear the truck's blaring horns of warning at the people crossing this bridge, motorbikes and tuck tucks and even the blender making my fresh mango shake in the kitchen.  But then I hear  the hum of French from around the dining table over there, not the expected Cambodian, but French.  I hear it in the architecture, the store names and the baguettes sold by every street vendor.   As I'm sitting here the wind periodically brings a thick scent of shit my way, I'm assuming its from this river where the sewerage is dumped.  All these things add to my picture and experience of Cambodia.  Kep The crabbing village of Kep is unfortunately sad in the way of food.  Not much flavor or distinction in anything we've tried.  Though the fresh crab from the  baskets in the water at the market were tasty, I think they were the culprit of hrs by the toilet.  There some caves close by to explore, a short boat trip to Rabbit Island for a small fee and a cool water front hammock land but other than that there's not much else to this border town.  So we will soon make our way into southern Vietnam.

Selamat Pagi Bali

Good morning Bali!

The courtyard outside our room where we partook of breakfast each sunny morning. 

We have some wonderful adventures And pictures to share on our everlater link. Bali has been a wonderful place for us to rejuvenate and relax with lots of yoga, good cheep food nd meeting absolutely incredible people that make both of us want to stay longer but it's time to move on. So in two days we leave for Lombok for another Indonesian adventure before heading up to Thailand. If you don't hear from us it's because we're having too much fun to connect to Internet and would rather connect with this incredible energy that surrounds us and the people it attracts. Love you all and remember that sometimes no news is good news. Xoxo

Good bye Aussie...

We have enjoyed a wonderful 5 weeks on the Eastern coastline of Australia seeing all we could of the beaches, wildlife and meeting as many fabulous Assies as possible.  After 4 weeks of driving from Melbourne to Cairns we were lucky enough to score a 7 day livaboard dive trip up the Great Barrier Reef to Osprey Reef and then the rarely visited Bougainville Reef due some  spectacluar weather conditions even the crew was surprised by.  They had a rare half price special going on so Craig and I jumped on it the moment we could.  As the highlight of our trip we got to add 25 (for me) and 26 (Craig) dives to our experience in some of the most beautiful diving spots in the world also getting our Advanced Open Water certification.

  We were graced with the company of a rarely seen whale shark one afternoon who let us snorkle with him for over and hr and then joined us on our ascent from our afternoon dive again.  Absolutely incredible!  Among our dives was a shark feeding where about 20 or more grey reef, white tip and silver tip sharks along with some giant cod devoured the fish provided by the staff just meters in front of us.  Craig was able to snag a tooth from one of the sharks that had broken off on the cage, after the feeding of course.  They are magnificant and quite lovely creatures with a bad reputation and though I knew they wouldn't harm me I still kept my distance through all the dives.  Giant Cod were fed right in front of our faces at Cod Hole, literally slapping us in the face with their tails as they whipped by.  We saw fantastic marine life from eagle rays to lion fish, morays and even nemo and his family a few times. Over all we were treated like royalty by a phenominal crew, ate more than we should have of the abundant food and met some wonderful people from all over.  I miss the rocking of the boat already and still hear the anticipated "dive time!" call in the back of my mind every now and then. We have some spectacular pictures to share as soon as we get to Asia where the internet is faster and by far cheeper, or so we hear.

We had heard that the Aussies are even nicer than the New Zealanders which was hard to believe after many lovely encounters with kind people in NZ, but i must say the competition was on.  The people here were so nice to us, some of whom i know we'll remain friends with for a long long time.   Thanks to all of you, you know who you are.  Even one Brit who was the dive trip director living here shared his kind heart and Aussie hospitality and even took us to the airport in Cairns. 

Our last few nights in the country were spend back in our tent on the Great Ocean Road back down in Victoria where we were able to see a cuddly koala very close up in the wild which made my day, and of course the regular sworm of wallaby and kangaroos.  The Twelve Apostels was spectactular though over popluated with tourists which is to be expected.  The drive was well worth our time with breath taking ocean views and if the water wasn't freezing coming up from the Antartic we would have enjoyed a swim or two.

So we say good bye to the land down under and in just a few hrs board a plane to Singapore where we'll spend only a day or two, then fly down to the southern Indonesian islands for some down time and maybe even a dive or two more.  We need a little rest and recupe from the vacation from being on the go for the last 2 months.  We are still loving every moment of the journey and learned loads along the way. 

More updates to come and apologies for the speradic updates. 

We love you all so much and hope you had a fantastic holiday season.