As black as boot polish

It's a good thing I'm married, because I would never catch a Bengali husband at the rate my skin's tanning! The combination of beautiful hot sunny weather and the reflective properties of the water mean that my hands are four shades darker - I've had a ring on one hand since the beginning of the holiday and the skin is a totally different colour. It's quite cool.

All the people in the internet cafes seem to be having dodgy chats with foreign women on MSN - it's amazing what people will do in public! People have no shame. I went to a place in Cairo to get my medical elective papers signed and the man had the most disgusting sites in his history and had no qualms about me seeing them.

Anyway, Dahab has been good fun, though I do feel guilty reading poor Bikey's blog - hopefully we'll be spending a lot more time with her after we finish our scuba diving course tomorrow. For some reason, even though I will hardly ever get the opportunity to dive after this, and certainly would never be brave enough to do it without a guide, I have become obsessed with getting my PADI Open Water Diver qualification. Reason tells me it is pointless, but I still keep thinking of ways in which I can create the time to do the necessary lessons...I don't think it's going to happen though. Yesterday we had a not-so-good instructor, resulting in a miserable day. Firstly she got us in our wetsuits about an hour and a half before we got into the water, so we were both sweltering. We absolutely couldn't lift our weights or tanks, and our equipment kept going wrong, and then to put the icing on the cake I ended up bashing the poor Cow with my air tank and giving her a nasty nose bleed. We decided it would be fun to give Bikey and Mr C a scare, and were contemplating whether to take her blood stained towel back and just say that she had met with an accident, but then we decided it would be kinder just to ring and tell them. She's ok now, and I'm sure she will give her own version of events in due course.

Today was a million times better, a much nicer and more enthusiastic (and English not American like the previous one - call me a xenophobe!) who was also very thorough. We avoided all the mistakes of the previous day and both ended up having a great time in the water. This is in spite of my ears - the first time I went diving they wouldn't pop and the pressure was building up to the point that it was causing me severe pain..we haven't done any 'Open Water' dives yet, i.e. in deep water, so we'll have to see how I do.

In our last two days we will be doing 3 dives, kayaking, a camel safari, snorkelling and quadbiking! I think I'll be 'all funned out' as the Cow would say, and just about ready to get down to some studying.