Mexican independance, bogans from logan and being left behind...

Hey everyone =]... Hope you are all doing ok. I had to make some time again to write this blog, but to be honest it is a bit to avoid doing work in the lab. It's one of those days that you cannot push yourself to do anything usefull at all! Pfff, I'm a bit bored, tired and lazy at the moment. So this will be a short one for a change :P. But let me start at the beginning. I met Nadiah at 10 for coffee like we agreed at Marlow, a nice coffee bar on the great court on campus. Had myself a really nice Iced coffee with cream, very bad for my figure. We were having so much fun talking about everything and found that we had one thing very much in common. Our passion for dancing! This tiny dancing queen is training almost every day of the week! While she also is doing her bachelor in Marine Biology! Unbelievable, and I thought I was a busy one... Well coffee became lunch and at 1 I decided that I had really better head back to the laboratory to still make something of my day. She invited me to a party that thursday in the city. A party to celebrate the mexican independance day! Wednesday was a bit boring,thursday I took the day of to go to the beach! What a nice day! Brisbane was clouded but the shore was as sunny as it gets! Fish and chips is the best =]! At night it was mexican party time!! It was so much fun. Everyone was really going crazy, there were so many people you had to squeeze your way through. Nadia was there, Andres the Columbian dance master and a lot of other friends; Nick, Johnny, Claire, Nadia, Maggie, Josh and probable some I am forgetting. There was a live band playing and there were performances of traditional mexican dances in between! With sombrero's and mustaches! So It was a night of corona's and tequila. I had just one of both. The music was so good I had been dancing all night with Nadiah and Andres!They are both so much better then me... Pfff... Its hard to keep up! But Got a new goal now... Get as good as they are!! Friday was a relaxed day at work and quiet at night. Saturday I took the ferry into the city, walked in the botanical gardens and took a stroll through the shopping streets. Made myself a nice pasta (what else, its all I seem to be making these days...) And had an early night. Sunday was catching up on my literature reading. Monday it was work again. Linda came back from her housesitting at Kenmore so we cooked together and went out for icecream, tuesday was another day in the lab and I did some boxing at night. By the way, my trainer is a real Bogan ;P Something I learned. Another not nice word :P a sort of "tokkies" for the dutch people. They make the nice alliteration Bogan from Logan because a lot of those bogans live in the suburb Logan... ;P Weird Ozzies! Today wednesday Linda left for LA. So I'll have the place to myself for the next four weeks... Nice but boring. Nadiah was this week doing fieldwork at Heron Island, and Nick went to Samoa... Pff everyone is leaving for Islands and leaving me behind!! This week will be quiet, but it is good for me to come to my senses of all the travelling and partying. Find the Zen part of me again. Although i must say I prefer the adevnture and crazy people =]. Well At least I met a really nice girls at boxing practise; Emily, she is a florist and owns two shops in town. She actually offerd me a job! So I might come back as a practised florist! We could open a shop together Mama! ;)So this is the part where I really start to miss everyone in Holland. My peacefull evenings would otherwise be filled with friends and picknicks at westerpark, crazy parties and tea with my girlfirends... I miss you guys!!! But all is not lost! I'll be back! Don't forget that!

Kisses for everyone!!

Sleepdeprived and Satisfied...

Time is going unbelievably fast... I have the feeling that I'm running as hard as I can and still I'm stumbling over the mountains of things that I have to do. There are not enough hours in one day. But after the last week and two weekends, I'm sleep deprived but satisfied. Fridaynight was my first relaxed evening, just putting everything in drawers making a bit of dinner and watching, 'so you think you can dance', when Linda (my roomie) texted me the question if I wanted to join her and Pat (her boyfriend) and a group of friends to a party at someones house. I was very tired but my curiosity overruled my sleepyness and I put on some mascara, jumped into a dress and got a cab to red Hill where they were at a friends house. They were with four of them. Linda, Pat, Justin and Nick. We drank a beer there and got anoher cab to the next party. A bit of a crazy party, where the cops kept barging in and most of the people were vey cracked up. It was quite funny though... Spend some time there sang some songs with a guy who brought a guitar and drank some wine. After the fourth visit of the cops and the fourth time the music stopped and everyone turned suspiciously quiet we decided to leave and go home. This was at about four. The next mornoing at twelve I was picked up by my two roomies to be; Maggie and Josh, to leave for our trip to Stradbroke Island. We had to stop at Indooroopilly shopping for me to go to the bank and see if I could withdraw some money from my new account. The money I transferred, ofcourse, hadn't arrived yet. We picked up Nadia and Tim and drove up to cleveland to get on the ferry to "Straddie", as the Ozzie's call it here. I also learned that they call Flip-flops, "Thongs". So the first time anyone mentioned that to me I was assuming that, he in this case, had a thong (like a G-string) in his car to put on his feet. Anyway, the ferry ride to straddie was very beautiful. We were very lucky with the weather, since spring just commenced here it can still be a bit chilly. (for their terms;) It was comparable to a very nice Dutch summerday. We arrived on the Island and drove to a very nice house owned by on old Ozzie, a real army captain, Ken. I got a bed in a huge six-bedded room that I shared with Maggie and Josh. We unpacked our stuff and ran down to the beach where I took a nap. I was still quite tired of all the travelling. On the beach we met Marina and Juka, they are brasilians also doing research on the UQ. Back at the house we had a nice barbeque and watched a movie. I was sleeping at eleven because we had to get up at 07:30 the next morning to go out to dive near lookout point. Ken attached the boat trailer to his huge oldtime 4x4 while we prepared our gear. We jumped in the car and on the beach we pushed the boat into the water and we drove/rode however you call it, off to the gutters! I had my usual problem when I was putting gear on, on the boat I was getting very nauseous but when we in the water and descended I was feeling as fresh as ever. The rocks under waeter were overgrown with beatiful seaweeds, anemonies and thousands of beautifully cooured fish. The gutter that we were diving in is know because big quantities of grey nurse shark live there, so we were hoping to have a close encounter with one. Juka and I, he was my buddy on that dive, were the only ones lucky enough to see one swimming by. We also saw a shuffle nose shark! It looks more like a vacuum cleaner though. Unfortunatly the dive was to deep to take my camera with me under water so no pictures of this dive. After about 30 minutes under we had to come up because some of us were running out of air. Back at the surface, I was ever more nauseous... So I fed the fishies... The divers term for being sick. But I felt better instantly! We had an hour surface time and we watched some whales pass by from a distance saw some dolphins and two turtles swimming by. The next dive was less deep but was even more beautiful. The thing that made this the hardest dive I had ever done was because of a really strong current. I had to swim so hard to go just a bit forward. Josh, who was obviously stronger then me and my buddy at that moment, struggled less so I signalled him that I was going up to the boat. When we reached the surface I could tell him what was wrong and Ken guided us to a place where the current was not so bad and we only felt a gush of the waves. Wich is actually quite funny to experience. You are like a tree in the wind ;P we some really beatiful carpet sharks or Wobbegongs as the Ozzies call them. and many, many other beatiful fish. We headed back to shore, towed the boat back onto the trailer and went home to rinse all our gear and to eat some wonderfull, Quesedias, made by Nadia and Tim. We headed down to the beach again for a nice and sunny afternoon where I shared nadias body board with Maggie, she and Josh coached me well and I was able to catch a few waves. =] After that we headed back to clean the house pack our things and drove to the ferrie. I was dropped home at about 19:30 where I made something to eat, and to go to bed. Monday was not the best day for me. When I got up to go to the Uni I wasn't feeling very well. A bit of an understatement really, so I stayed home and slept all day. Later when Linda came home she made a really nice rice dish, the first thing I ate that day. Went back to bed at eleven and again, slept like a rose. The next day I felt much better and started my work in the laboratory. The rest of the week was a bit of the same. Work hard during the day making dinner at night, and sleep on time. Thursday I joined Unidive, a group that organizes reasonably priced diving trips for everyone of teh University. That night one of friends I met at Linda's party came over for beers and invited me to some other parties the following weekend. Friday was a succesfull day in the Laboratory. We we finally able to get our PCR's working. It shouldn't be that hard, really. and I decided that I would go to friday night salsa at the casino square. There was no one to join me so I just put on my party shoes and Linda gave me a ride to the square. It was better than I had imagined! So many people having fun and dancing! It took half an hour for the first one to ask me to dance, But when you are on the dance floor, it's easy. I met a lot of people and made some nice new friends. A really nice girl Nadia who, what a coincedence, studies in the same faculty that I am do my internship in. Nick met me there for some drinks and we went to a place called "stock exchange" a nice weirdy place with fun music. We were with five of us, all dancing like crazy! It was so much fun! Especially Nadiah, little dancing queen!! I went home at about 4. Got up early the next morning to go to the free market at west end with nick. Really nice. Almost all earopean countries were represented! They even had Dutch "poffertjes"!!! Hahahaha... Hilarious. Bought a lot of groceries and made a nice lunch. At 5 we picked up Justin and Kate and went to friends house. Andrew the friend is the funniest guy ever. As gay as it gets and totally fired up! He really made the party. At seven a thing that they call riverfire started. An enourmous fireworks event with the spectucualar ending of two F16's that dump and burn their fual while flying over the river!!! It looked like a meteor shooting over the city!! I brought a lot of fruits that I bought on the market started to make cocktails for everyone. Again a really crazy party with a lot of cracked up people.. Seems to be normal here.. But I had a great night. Was glad whem I finally reached my bed though. To get a cab was really hard because of all the parties in the city. Sunday was an easy day with another visit to andrew, who needed some company to survive hs hangover, a visit to the Southbank, where we met up with Linda and Pat to have a drink and after I went to Normanbys with Clive and Nick to laugh at overdressed trashy girls and meathead guys. I was forced to watch Point break because I enquired Clive, who is a personal trainer, to give me a surfing lesson; he said watch and learn... Hahaha... easy lesson huh! Early to bed and up again next morning to get to work again... SO now is now, and I'm a bit sleep deprived of all the beers and dancing. Having an easy couch night bith Byron the house dog, a big Benard Senner who is alone today because his mistress had to stay overnight in the hospital. Tomorrow I will have coffee with nadiah and try a boxing training at the campus to try and get all the beers from the weekend off my ass... ;P So again, nice things for the days to come... =]

Honouring the Spirits, acquireing Luck and reaching the farthest corners of the world...

Maybe I was lucky that I missed my Firefly tour, because the evening that I got in return was an incredible succes! I'd like to think (wonderfully supersticious), that it had something to do with a good luck charm I bought that afternoon in the Central Market. It must have had something to do with it! I was quite disappointed that I missed the tour and a bit cranky about it too, so out of frustration I wrote my last blog and watched some tv. At about seven I went outside to the evening market to see If I could find some nice watches. Later I decided to visit Joanne again at her foodstand and had a deliciuos, specially preperad fried rice, by her husband "Bobby". She tought me some more kantonese and told me about their custom with the "Moon rice cake" Which had a nice history. http://www.chinesefortunecalendar.com/midfallstory.htm. You can find it here if you're interested. After a very nice evening she invited me to have dinner with her and her family. So we drove to another part of the city and enjoyed a real typical dish. Rice porridge with lots of side dishes to combine it with. It was a strange but nice dish. Joanne gave me as a present a fan

that could also be worn as a hat and she promised to call me when she ever came to holland with her family. The family dropped me of at China Town again where I walked towards my hotel. I walked through a side street of jalan petaling and saw heaps of yellow papers on the street with golden emblems on them. They were burning forests of incence sticks and there were huge tables filled with food, sweets and beer standing right on the middle of the street. There were about twenty drunk asians on the streets inviting me to join their party. They lighted the paper stacks into a great fire and threw so much food into it! They were offering it to the spirits. It was like an asian type of halloween. A group of British joined me in the party.
It was an incredibly fun evening. I was "dumbfounded" by the way the asians were going crazy. A word Karl, a really funny british guy, taught me. I got a tour of the restaurant of one of the party guests since me and the other girls had to go to the bathroom. Suddenly, back at the party, a really tiny asian guy with a charred voice started to play guitar and sing with two little kids next to him. A boy playing the jembe and a girl with a tambourin! Ik was incredibly funny! They sang really corny amercan songs and the man sounded like he had smoked a cigarette every other minute of his life. The little boy who was playing the jembe was so cute. So I grabbed a plate and put two Ringitt in coins on it and placed in in front of them.
At once all the drunk people grabbed their wallets and filled the plate with bills... My good deed for the day! We partied on, on the street, till four. Then the group British left because they had to catch their plane at 9 in the morning to Bali. I had to admit I was a bit jealous! Some of them were going surfing! I walked to my hotel and slept like a rose... Woke up far too late. I forgot my checkout time was 12:00 I woke up at 13:00... because the reception callen if I wanted to extend my stay... Ooops.. :P I packed my bag as fast as I could dumped them at the reception and went out to buy something that could pass for breakfast. The good thing was that, even in that hot climate, they sold grilled chestnuts!! My favorite! So breakfast found. I went to say hi to some friends I made who had I watch store and went inside to grab my bags and take a cab to Kuala Lumpur Sentral and next a bus to the airport. I had to leave far earlier then needed because at four is the time when the evening market starts in the street that I was staying in. That market is so narrow and cramped that I wouldn't have been able to pass with my enourmous bag. So I took a nice nap on the airport. While boarding I met a really nice girl. She was a true Brisbanite! When I told her I was going there too she offered me a ride to city! Unbelievably kind! Her father and best friend came to pick her up and there was one more spot in the car for me. =] They dropped me off at Pim's place, my supervisor of the research I will be conducting on the University of Queensland. I hadn't had one minute of sleep in the plane and when I arrived at Pim's place it was allready eleven in the morning. I's skipped a night. They brought me to my new house. (for the next one and a half month) Where I met my new room mate. A Dutch girl from Amsterdam also called Linda. =] She's really fun! The house where I am staying now is incredibly nice. It even has a pool!! My room is nice and big with lots of closet space =]. Afetr we went to the University where Pim and his grilfriend Kyra showed me around on the campus and in our building. At 2 I went to buy some lunch. After I ate that I was so exhausted that I slept 45 minutes in the sunshine on the gras. After that I opened a bank account here and took the bus home. I unpacked and met with Linda to do the groceries and after I made a Killer carbonara and Linda made a killer salad... We drunk a beer that Linda had brewed herself with it. After dinner I took a shower. Almost fell asleep underneath it and dragged myself to bed. At 21:30 I was vast asleep and I woke up a good 12 hours later...
I raced to the Uni as soon as possible where Pim and I fixed all the administrational ruckous and he explained the possibilities of my internship here. It is going to be incredible! I'll explain the specifics later but the research is going to be so cool and het promised me 2 publications as co-author =]. When that happens I'm on the chart of real researchers!!

I also took care of some necessities. I got an Australian sim card now. So you all can reach me on the following nr. +61415800829.

I'm going home now to eat the leftovers from yesterday and meet Pim, Kyra, Linda and maybe some more later in the city to drink some beers. The prospect of this weekend is also NICE! Maggie, a room mate of Pim and Kyra, soon to be my roommate since I will move there in 1,5 months, asked me to join her and some others to go to an island close by to spend the night there and do some diving on sunday! How cool is that! Can't wait. So about that good luck charm... I think it working quite well for me =]

Goodbye Kao Lak, Hello Kuala Lumpur

After the floaty car incident I had a quiet morning with some shopping, reading and wandering around in Kao Lak. Wilma was working hard with the local mechanics to try to get the car up and running and back and forth to the rental office to fix the insurance. Peng (a friend and employee from the jerung house) was scooping up all the remaining water in the car. I the afternoon Wilma and I escaped the car-mess and hopped on to our scooters to visit the market. The markets there are like an exotic version of the Albert Cuijp market in Amsterdam. It was very big and with anything you can imagine. Wilma and I ate some nice snacks, grilled chicken on a stick ;), coconut pancakes and I bought two dresses. Very very nice =]. The food section of the market was even more interesting. Chickens cut in half with the eggs still inside, meat lying in the open almost covered with flies and very peculiar sea shells…
I have no Idea what that was… Wilma left again to check on the car and I stayed to wander some more. I sat down at a little bar and bought an orange juice to get hydrated again. There I found out the owner of the bar was a Dutch guy married to a Thai woman. His son of three was walking around too. When I said (in Dutch of course) that I was going to buy some fruit, the little guy suddenly said “can I go with you?” (also in Dutch). I was stunned, a little boy of three that speaks Thai, Dutch and English. Of course I took him, Song is his name, with me to walk around watch the goldfish and other exotic aquarium fish that they sold and to buy and eat some fruit. I stayed for two hours hanging around, talking with Songs dad and mother. When I came back I had a moment of rest and Wilma and I went for dinner in a local restaurant where we had sweet and sour squid. Wonderfully good, with fried Thai pumpkin with oyster sauce. I could cry so good was it. For desert Banana fritter with honey. The Thai sure know what is good. Our regular massage parlous was flooded that same night as the car floated away so we searched for another one. We found a good one and the lady gave me a real Thai massage. She walked all over me! But it was incredibly good. I turned in to chill watch a movie. The next morning I packed my bag said goodbye to Wilma and Kao Lak and took a taxi to the airport of Phuket where I took I flight back to Bangkok. The hotel where I made a reservation was close to the airport but in a bad neighborhood. I went out anyway with only some money in my pocket, too scared that I would get robbed if I carried a bag. About 4 minutes walking away was a 7/11 market. I thought that the guy behind the reception meant a supermarket, but it was a real food market. There were only really poor people, men sleeping in every corner. Women were sitting on chairs that have 3 legs instead of 4. It was total poverty. But the food looked incredible. I bought a dragon fruit, grilled chicken with oily pepper coriander sauce and shrimp rice crackers. A very nice meal. I ate it in my hotel room and stayed there because I had to get up at 4 in the night to go to the airport to catch my flight to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. I couldn’t sleep and I stayed up all night watching movies and weeds. At four I was ready to go and brought down my bags to be brought to the airport by the hotel cab. On the airport I had my first encounter with an Australian guy from Melbourne, Gabe. We had breakfast together and found out that we were on the same flight. So he gave me loads of tips on what to do in Melbourne. In the plane I sat next to a nice Malaysian girl who told me all about Kuala Lumpur. Out of the plane I had coffee with Gabe and took a one hour bus to Kuala Lumpur Central and took a cab to Jalan Petaling road where my hotel is. The hotel was in the middle of the main street of China Town! So Cool! I dumped my bags in the tinest room a hed ever seen. It didn’t even have a window! That doesn’t matter though.. I went outside to take a walk in the city. It is a real metropolitan here. I had the petronas twin towers in view and went to a great square. It was independence day here. I had hoped to see some festivities, but there wasn’t much because of the fasten month and the H1N1 scare. They take these things far too serious here. I took a nap in the afternoon that was far too long… oops, I went to have dinner when the stands were all closing. I met a very nice malasyan kantonese woman who owns a dinner stand. She taught me a lot of kantonese. Thank you for example is Mkoy! She told me a nice place to visit at night and dropped me off there. So nice, I was in the car with her husband and two sons. A nice street with lots of restaurants. I walked back home bought an icecream on the way and just in front of my street an Indian guy talked to me to give me a flyer for salsa lessons. We got talking and invited me to have tea in a café two shops away. His name is Lingan and studied Chakra massage and more about energies. He calculated my earth and universe numbers (4 and 3) and explained a lot about these beliefs and teachings. I went to the hotel to sleep but had no sleep at all.Today I went to see the petronas towers. I crazy French guy tried to climb it! He got caught by the police just after he reached the top! The guy was just like spiderman. I hopped into the central market which is like a really old aythentic mall with lots of little shops. Very beautiful and I bought some small good luck charms, one for health, one for long life and one for luck! Now, I was supposed to take a tour to the countryside to see the fireflies over the water… But I missed it because the time on my telephone was one hour off… Thank you for your help good luck charm... :S Now I have to think of something else to do tonight. I will go for some more kantonese lessons with Joanne and try to go to the beachclub. A disco near the petronas towers. Tomorrow in the morning I try to go the aquarium if I have enough time because I have to catch my flight at nine to Brisbane!!! Finally! Please don’t forget that you can give a reaction to this blog. I like to hear what you think of it! and how you all are doing ofcourse! And for now! Aie to Buur!!

The River, the Monkey, the Elephant and the cruelness of Mother Nature

Yesterday was one of the most beautiful days of my life. Wilma and I when on a expedition to the Kao Sok national park. That consists of only jungle and rivers. On the way there we would also visit a cave temple where lots of monkeys live. So to feed the monkeys we went to buy peanuts and bananas on a local market. As some of you know I adore markets so I was awed with amazement of all the exoc fruits that were there and the way meat is stored in such a warm country like this. I bit disgusting but cool at the same time. We drove for an hour to the north and when we arrived at the temple we met the titties nun. Luckily I did not have to experience it but this nun seems to have a fetish for breasts. She is known to harass women by grabbing them by the tits. It was not our lucky day, unfortunately there were no monkeys at all!! So I took a look in the cave temple and saw a mummified monk and some nice buddha statues and we went on to a little restaurant where I ate banana pancakes. I got the tip that for western people it is not so good to eet three thai meals on a day. Ours stomachs could not bear it. Which I noticed my first day. After lunch I put on my shorty wetsuit and we walked down the road with inlated car tires. We arrived at a bridge descended to the river (this is really allready in the middle of the jungle!) and we floated down the river. The most beautiful thing I had ever seen, we floated between gigantic trees, beautiful flowers, fluits hanging ripe from the trees and liana hanging everywhere. It was magnificent. I have not the correct words to discribe this. In the middle of our trip we reached a little hole in the mountain where they hung a rope and you can swing yourself into the river, our guide anuwat was a real tarzan, he showed me how to best jump from that slippery slope. When the tour ended we were picked up by a pickup truck. (how typical :P) that drove us back to the town through palm oil-palms, and rubber-trees. After a change of clothes we went back to the monkey temple where luckily the monkeys were again. We fed them all a whole bag of peanuts and many bananas. Greedy little bastards... But they are very funny! There were allso three puppies that were the cutest ever, there was one that if I could, I would have taken him home immediately. Wilma fed then two bananas. It sky was getting a bit dim so we dicided to head back to Kao Lak. On our way back we saw two elephamts with riders on them. The elephants were working, but the men were so kind to come my way a bit and let the elephants do some tricks for me. A short but fun encounter. After we passed through the mountain it started to pour, well pour is an understatement, rain started to gush out of the skies. two steps outside would soke you through the bone. A thing that happened more often then I wanted.. We went for the most delicious meal in a little restaurant across the street from the Jerung Guest House where I am staying. Panang curry with ckicken and sweet banana in coconut milk.......... Prrr... wagging my tail. We truned in early because all the shopes closed because of the rain. So I worked a bit on my photos, tried to watch a movie but fell asleep instantly. This morning a woke up from someone banging at my door. It was Wilma, she was a bit out of sorts. Apparently the whole street was flooded for over a meter high this night. The car had been filled with water and floated 30 meters, to the other side of the guest house. I had to make pictures with my camera for the insurance office. All the houses had severe water damage and a lot of ground just washed away.. Oops... a bit more dangerous then I thought. Luckily the rain stopped and most of the water is gone allready. I just have to see how I will get to phuket to get my plane. I think all will be ok. But I'll keep you posted. I just experienced my own natural disaster. Cruel mother nature, the remains of the tsunami disaster are still visible and then this happens just when people invested a lot of money in their new businesses. I also just heard that the forecast says three more days of this kind of rain... Hope and pray for better days...

Bangkok and Khao Lak

After an Airplane ride from hell of ten hours in the smallest airplane chairs I have ever seen I arrived at Bangkok Airport. My neighbour in the plane was a nice Austrian who helped me filling in the immigration form for my visa there. The Thai people are keen to see you leave so everything is wel if you have a ticket to leave the country. My first stamp in my passport! I was a bit proud of that, dopey huh. The weirdest thing was that before immigration we had to walk past a camera in a neat row slowly and look into the camera. When we past the camera I took a sneak peek on the screen and noticed it was a heat seeking camera. They were looking for people with a fever to quarentain them, they are spastically scared for the swine flu here. Everyone is walking around with mouthcaps and eyeballing all foreighners suspiciously. I took my ginourmous bag and my diving bag from the belt en stuffed my diving gear back into the bag. After I took some money from the ATM. Thai money is like monopoly money. It looks weird and is ridiculously big. You could wipe you *** twice with a 1000 bath bill. I took a cab in from op the departures terimal. My cousing John told me it was cheaper, and it is!! 300 bath I paid the guy that is approximately 6 euro's for 45 minutes of driving. We couldn't find the hotel at first so we had to stop and ask some people, which made the trip even longer. The hotel, called Villa ChaCha, was a very neat and beatiful hotel, full with buddah statues and there was a beautiful pool. I dumped my bags and went on the streets to find something to eat. I ate the best cocos soup with chicken ever in my life at a little stand on the street. I bet it would've tasted even better had I not cought a terrible cold. Imagine, sneezing, snotting and coughing in a humid city of 45 degrees centigrade... I thought I was melting away.

After my lunch I decided to hide in my air conditioned room. I turned in at three and came out at seven to take a dip in the pool filled with french people. After I tried a nice Thai dish, Flied Glass Noodles... Very Nice! And a Papaya juice, the best juice I have ever tasted. The Thai sure know what is good. A few moments later a Monsoon rain started to fall out of the sky. It was possible to swim in the streets, so my plans to go to the MBK mall litteraly fell in the water. Soon I had some companions at my table, since the rest of the tables floated in the rain. I met a guy and a girl from Austria (again). Roberto a guy who has been traveling for over 25 years with an incredible life story gave me some good ideas of places to visit that are not in the lonely planet. So Hopefully I will meet him in december when I'll be back in Thailand to make a few dives near the similan islands.

The next morning I was up at 5:30 to catch my plane in Phuket where I was picked up by the Sister of my dive instructor to go to Kao Lak. A town that was gruesomely damaged by the tsunami in 2004. The signs are still clear though the village looks very good taken care of and is almost completely rebuilt now. The town is surrounded by a jungle and close to a great national park, that I hope to visit for some hiking in the following days here. I rented a scooter and got on the road with Wilma (the sister) and we went to the most wonderfull beach. Like on postcards. A real bounty beach where we ate squid fritter, green prawn curry, stirfried morningglory (no idea what vegetable it was) and sweet banana in cocos milk as desert in a cute bamboo furnished restaurant. The weird thing is that the sun goes down here at 7 PM. So we had to drive back in the dark, which was a bit tricky since there are no lights whatsoever on the road, it was hard to recognise the way back. Home again we went for a Thai massage. One and a half hour of bliss for less then 5 euro's. I allmost feel like I'm robbing them. Now, totally sitasfied, I'm sitting on my bed contemplating what to do tomorrow... I'm sure it will be great...

up, UP and AWAY!!!

De hutkoffer is gepakt. Mijn advanced duikers brevet is in "the pocket" Ik heb mijn zenuwen overleefd. In een zen staat tel ik de uren totdat ik opstijg en mijn avontuur nu echt begint. Met speciale dank aan mijn duikinstructeur... Zonder alle support was het me niet gelukt... =] Nog 2 prikjes in mn bil en het is Auf wiedersehen!!! Gelukkig heb ik bergen foto's van iedereen met mooie en leuke herinneringen, een hoop skype adressen en email adressen. Dus echt alleen zal ik me niet gaan voelen Down Under. Mijn skype adres: linda_gomes Vind het super fijn als jullie ook wat van jezelf laten horen! Dan blijf ik toch een beetje in contact met het leven in Nederland.

Dikke Kus voor iedereen en de verhalen komen eraan.

Ajeto buur!

Liefs Lin