Hello all!

Today is my sixth week of being in Cambodia - how time is flying by! Feel pretty settled in Phnom Penh now having got a routine for most days and knowing my way around the city.

The teaching is going well - the students shyness has disappeared and now the classroom is filled with lots of chatter and banter amongst each other! It is actually difficult to keep them quiet most of the time! All the students are really lovely actually and I enjoy teaching all my classes - I have been quite lucky as other teachers have had problems with students being rude or not co-operating. Not used to 6am starts yet - it is a struggle when the alarm goes off at 5am and annoyingly it does impact you for the rest of the day as a couple of times a week I will need to nap in the day to keep myself going. People in general though are finding the hours quite difficult - at first we thought we would get used to it but now I think it will be a case of accepting we will be tired but just making the most of the experience we have here. I am worried I will come away and say all I did in the week was teach, eat and sleep and that is not the experience I want! So my aim from now on is to make the most of each day - and hence in 15 minutes I am leaving for a kick boxing class!

Getting on really well with everyone in the house - we are lucky to have a big group that get on so well. Last week was a Cambodian holiday so a group of us went to an island in the south and spent 5 days relaxing, sleeping and enjoying the time off! The island was beautiful - we arrived by boat and you were struck with how untouched it was - apart from a few accommodation lodges set up it was as basic as you could get. Only 100 people lived where we were staying - no vehicles driving around, just gorgeous white sand and the sea! It was our idea of heaven. Unfortunately the weather was not on our side - Cambodia is seeing the worst floods they have had in 10 years and the rain continued to pour most of the time, which was a shame. We were due to leave the island on Tuesday but the weather was so bad the boat could not leave the island so we had to delay until the next day! We made it back for teaching with 5 hours to spare - I think the school were beginning to panic they would have twleve teachers missing for the first lesson of the day! It was a great place to visit though and what we all needed.

Now back from paradise and back into usual routine. We have another 5 day holiday next month so a group of us are organising Siem Riep which will be fun. Slight bit of bad news - my friend was mugged a few days ago (thankfully she is fine - they just took her bag) but in her bag was my camera. Most of my photos I had uploaded on the internet already but it means getting photos on here is now difficult! Very glad she is ok and it is just a camera, I will be replacing it before finishing here so I can continue to take photos for the remainder of my travelling time.

That's the update from me! All in all having a great time - meeting fantastic people and enjoying the challenges of teaching life! Will do another update soon. Love to you all :-)