More adventures

An early start. The shock of that wasn’t the first of the day though, as that was when I was in the bathroom and V started screeching not to come out as something was moving! When I eventually gingerly opened the door we both saw that the thing was in fact a tiny lizard…very cute! It did wake us up properly though, and gave us a giggle. We had to meet at 6.30am for a dawn walk through the forest and grabbed some tea and toast before then, watching the macaques playing and squabbling in and around the riverbanks and trees, then set off (trying to stay with the whole group rather than being hived off with I&D!) walking from the lodge round ‘Otter loop trail’. We heard that many guests in the River Chalets had been kept awake by the macaques jumping onto their roofs and sounding like they were playing football up there! Maybe we were lucky ending up in the Hill Chalets…not so disturbed!
After we’d set off we quickly spotted some gibbons in the trees and stood watching them for quite a while as they swung and jumped with their enormously long arms through the tall trees. We then headed into the forest and came across all sorts…including one dead snake on the path (a tiny striped cukri) followed soon after by seeing a leaf nosed pit viper on a beach above the side of the path. Highly venomous, so just as well he seemed fast asleep! We also spotted lots of birds: a white collared kingfisher (beautiful), a greater cuckoo, a red eyed bulbul, a white crowned sharma with a beautiful song and a crimson sunbird. There were butterflies everywhere, tiny yellow ones, a pale blue small one, very many black and white lacy ones and a large yellow and black one. They didn’t sit still long enough to photograph but it was lovely to have them dancing around us. Our guide Maldin also spotted several spiders sitting in their webs, not doing anyone any harm, and quite beautiful once he’d got up close to take photos for us! We also found wild mimosa plants with their folding leaves when touched, and they had lovely little lilac pom-pom flowers.
Back for some fruit and a coffee before getting changed (putting swimming costumes on under our walking gear) and heading back out for a drive to another walk. On the way up there we saw:
Swallow tail moth (huge and beautiful)
Lantern bugs
Black eagle
Reethed hornbill
Rhinoceros hornbill
Oriental pied hornbill
We also passed some wild ginger plants with very beautiful flowers on them ….one had yellow clusters and the other a red trumpet shape, and they smelled strongly of ginger. Also saw even more huge leaves, one from a plant commonly called elephant’s ears which would have been brilliant as umbrellas.
Once we got to the waterfall we quickly stripped off and walked along to the beautiful natural amphitheatre of a lake with the (short but) impressively set waterfall. There were little fish in the shallows that we thought might nibble our feet but they didn’t seem interested in mine! Just as well we had our sandals on as it was quite stony underfoot and would have been difficult to walk in, and the water was deeper and colder than we expected, but it was lovely (I thought of my wild swimmer blipfriends as I plunged in!). We posed for daft photos and splashed about, then swam back down the little river (avoiding the bigger rocks!) and rapidly pulled our clothes back on over our wet cossies to avoid being around as I&D manoeuvred to change under tiny hotel towels (I was feeling smug I’d brought my camping towel at this point) and we walked up the hill with Maldin a bit and looked at a little 5 toed King lizard basking on the boardwalk. We kind of jokingly asked him if there were water snakes in the lake/river and were very taken aback when he said that at night there are several…..argh!! I suspect if we’d known that we wouldn’t have gone in…V certainly wouldn’t have done!
Back at the lodge we got changed into dry clothes and had a little rest, but not for long (it’s all go today!) before having a cup of tea, a croissant and a very dry scone.
Soon time to go for our foot soak…we first of all had another mud face pack, then sat with out feet in warm water with ginger, lemongrass, galangal and other lovely things, as well as river stones that we had to run our feet over and round to help exfoliate. We were brought delicious chrysanthemum tea and had quiet time (apart from V and me giggling uncontrollably at one point which of course J&B filmed! Afterwards we had towels to dry our feet and a little leaf with a do.lop of Nivea cream on it to massage in, then we rinsed off the face pack…all felt absolutely gorgeous!
Back in the chalet we had some slight problems with the toilet that led to us both in peals of laughter wondering how to sort it, but thankfully it eventually resolved itself (enough said!) and we used the cafe toilet from then on!
By 4.30pm we were once again boarding the bus for a long spotting drive along the main track and down to the reserve’s entrance, which we reached just as darkness finally fell, and we then returned in the dark with the guides again shining their powerful beams around to spot the birds and wildlife. We saw so much again…civets, more hornbills (including the tiniest, the bushy crested, who were cuddled up in pairs asleep on a branch, and, spectacularly, a leopard cat which was so beautiful. You get real neck ache looking up to the tops of the trees on these drives, and some back ache as there’s only a narrow bench to sit on, but so worth it!
It was a long, bumpy drive, we weren’t back til 8pm, but fascinating and so interesting to be out again deep in the jungle.
Dinner (lovely prawn fritters, beef curry, rice and vegetables then some chocolate cake and fruit) was tasty as usual and we had a beer…both pretty tired. V and J checked we’d recorded everything we’d seen in their eye-spy type books then we watched a video that I suspect we were meant to see on the first day and made certificates with our handprints in mud alongside the prints of all the other animals…Maldin helped us do all that so carefully.
We were absolutely pooped by then and just about fell into bed, but had to pack first as we leave at 7am tomorrow!