Wednesday, April 25, 2012

It's been a while...

I haven't posted in about a month because April is the month of vacation! Pretty much everyone does nothing this entire month. Ok, that's an exaggeration. The hotel staff all work very hard. At the beginning of April I went to the Pehentian Islands in Malaysia with some friends. It was relaxing and fun. I would suggest it if you're in the area because the islands are easy to get to from kuala lumpur. It was about a 7 hour bus ride (we took a night bus) and then a quick boat ride out to the islands. The snorkeling is good, there are a few scuba diving 'companies' (?), and the beach is beautiful. We even had to make an emergency visit to the island clinic for my friend and I highly recommend it. It's a public government run clinic, but I've never seen anything run by any government that was so clean. Plus, there was no red tape and the staff was super nice. On top of it all they gave the exact correct treatment and it all cost only about 5 dollars. I give it 5 stars in terms of government run clinics on remote islands in south east asia.

Snorkeling was an adventure. It started with this conversation:

Sally: It looks like a storm is coming. (Points to ominous clouds)
Hotel staff: No. Today is fine weather for snorkeling.
Sally: Could we change to tomorrow?
Hotel Staff: No, today is great weather for snorkeling.

About an hour later we're out in the open sea in the middle of a thunderstorm being yelled at to jump out of the boat and chase the sea turtles around. I loved it. I had really forgotten what it was like to be out on the water and I miss it a lot. I was never a very strong swimmer, but something about being in a vessel with the waves under you and the rain coming down is exhilarating. The ocean is so huge.

Unfortunately, I had to go back to Cambodia. But, the next two weeks were really great too. I got to spend about a week in Siem Reap just relaxing and swimming everyday with Kurt. Then my mom came to visit; an experience in which I learned many things about myself. The last couple days I felt a bit sick, but sleeping a couple days has brought me back to 100%. I'm back to the usual routine this week, but next week I'm going to PP again. It's already time for COS conference (Close of Service)! So soon, but some days still so far away.