Sihanoukville - 23rd July 2009

Yet another early morning, and to the sound of the heaven's opening, or as my tuk tuk driver said a few days ago 'raining cats and dogs!'
I had a lovely hot shower, my first in quite a long time; maybe it was worth paying the extra $3 for such privaledge? or maybe not.
I couldn't be bothered doing much today, so decided on a very lazy catch up online, a coffee on the go for breakfast, in the form of a can and bought a newspaper to catch up on the news. The rain had stopped so it made a fairly pleasant morning. Unfortunatly the stupid internet cafe was being dodgy and the computer, although having faster internet than most places, wasn't letting me upload photos.
I bought a couple of books to read to keep me entertained, and then headed towards the beach with guidebook in hand. For some reason I had eye contact with someone I was about to pass on the pavement for slightly too long, possibly as the man looked foreign but very tanned and he was topless which I thought was maybe not appropriate, but then who am I to judge.
The man initiated conversation with me, saying I should ditch the guidebook and see Cambodia and not a bunch of English people. We got talking and he offered to walk with me for a bit and show me some of 'Cambodia'. He said he had been living in Cambodia for two years now but wouldn't actually tell me what he did. He said he now considered it his home though.
We had some 'real coffee' which was just as really as any other coffee that I'd had, and he had some donuts off a lady who was carrying them on her head as she passed, and also some fresh yoghurt from a guesthouse that made it. He was talking Cambodian to the locals and pointing out various houses he was interested in buying or renting for not very much per month or year, but with beautiful views of the sea.
I 'dropped' him off at his hotel, and then wandered back down to the beach. I checked out some scuba diving places, which seemed quite a reasonable price, before having some lunch; a vege-burger and a coffee. I had a short walk on the beach, whilst pondering over whether I should do the diving or not. I happened to meet the Austrian couple that I'd met the previous day on the bus to Sihanoukville. We had a short chat, and I mentioned that I was thinking about doing the diving, they said I should go for it as I would probably enjoy it.
I headed back towards the street with all the diving shops on, and after thinking about how much money I had. I had a bit of a fright thinking that I wouldn't be able to get any money put in my account, but thankfully I managed to get all financial problems sorted, and I booked the scuba diving. I was really quite excited, although quite nervous about all the boat trips we'd be making.
Tomorrow however was just a day full of theory. I was given a book, from which I had to read up a rather large 3 chapters. It was quite interesting, and a lot related to Physiology and Physics and some Geography too, in the form of the weather and tides.
By this time it was now early evening, so after a few stints on the internet, I headed back to my hotel to study. I was exhausted and so didn't manage to get out to get any dinner. I had a sleepless night which was annoying and I was full of aches and pains from my back during the night, probably not helping the matter.