last night i was so tired, after two days of getting up at 6 in the morning, i went to sleep at 10.30. then of course i got woken up by a group of israeli guys who thought it'd be a good idea to have a very loud conversation sitting on the terrace next to my room (that serves me right for asking for a room with window!). when i asked them to be more quiet they were quite nice though and left after 5 minutes. still, i can conferm what i'd heard about israeli backpackers: they are RUDE. especially to locals, which i find very annoying and absolutely unecessary (especially here, where people are just so lovely).
anyway, this morning i got up quite late, and then organised myself with nadege, this dutch girl i'd met yesterday on the bus from phnom penh (i met her when i heard this cambodian guy asking her to marry him and i thought she might need the help! lol). after some talking we decided to just rent a motorbike which she would drive... so after she learnt how to use a motorbike with gears (in about 5 minutes - errrr!) we were off! it was quite a nice idea actually, to see stuff with someone i can talk to. :) we went through all of these lovely villages, with wooden house on stilts, huge, incredibly kitsch pagodas, and so many kids and people screaming hello and smiling at us. it was not like indonesia, where i just felt harassed; everybody just seemed so friendly. so we spent a good half an hour speeding through villages saying hello to everybody and waving at kids.
the dolphin watching was amazing. i'm not really an animal person, and i never thought i'd like it so much. but they really are cute animals, and the noise they make when they come up for air... and their rounded heads... anyway you can check this if you want to know more about them! sadly i didn't manage to get a proper picture of one, they were just too quick/too far away. but we saw so many of them, we were on our little boat on the mekong for over 2 hours i think. i loved it.
then we thought we would go see this pagoda we'd been told about; shame we went in the wrong direction, and basically got lost! after driving for a while through countryside and paddy fields, we turned around; that's when we started raining. we decided to stop and sit in a small veranda style thingy and wait until the rain went away; we didn't quite realise how strong the rain was going to be! queue the two of us sitting under this riny roof trying to cover ourselves with a single raincoat and getting completely soaked! it was sort of fun though, adventurous. :) after a while it stopped raining (or well, it started raining a lot less...) so we drove back to the guesthouse and got even more soaked. it was hilarious when we got here, really. i could really walk properly cause my ass was so sore (motorbikes just do that to me!) and nadege couldn't feel her fingers...! nothing a good cup of coffee couldn't solve though. :)
tomorrow morning i shall be getting a minibus to stung treng and then a boat to the lao border; not quite sure how i'll get to don dhet after that. it should be alright. i'm starting to think it will take a LONG time though. sigh. at least i'm starting soon though (7.30).
now i am going to finish drinking my royal d (cambodian lemon flavoured rehydration salts, they're great!) and check out some travel info on travelfish... ah, this really is the life.