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Adam and Charlotte's Great Escape.
This is a sad moment for us as this is the last postcard we are going to write; well for this world trip anyway. But the fun doesn't end just yet we still have to tell you all about our adventurous trip in Indonesia.
We arrived in Balikpapan last Tuesday and spent 2 days looking around the town and places where Adam, Grant and their mum and dad used to live. One the first day we went to look at the houses that they onced lived in, although one of them had been knocked down. We also visted the old swimming pool that Adam and his brother used to play in and apparently it still looks the same but 20 years older. On the second day we visited the local market where we bought some local crafts.These days were also spent preparing ourselves for our trip up the Mahakam River.
In a house boat the six of us spent four days trevelling up this river visiting various villages. The village on the first day was a 2 hour longboat trip away and then a half hour 4 wheel drive. What an adventure that was, the truck pulled up with 4 wicker chairs and 2 plastic chairs lined up in the back of it, so there we were trying to hold the chair in place as we drove along a very bumpy and uneven road. At the village we looked at the long house and had our welcome ceremony which also included us dancing too.
The second day we went around a village and to the Orchid Forest where we saw rare black orchids.
We all agree that the best day was the third day where we first took a speed boat up the river to a Dayak village where we saw our first long ear ladies with Dayak tatoos which is a very rare site. In the afternoon we went to a second Dayak village and watched the locals perform the Hudoq dance which askes for good harvest. This was really fantastic to see, they were very enthusiastic and the costumes were amazing. This was certainly my highlight of the boat trip.
The boat itself was almost like a survival test, we had to all sleep in the same one room with matresses on the floor and had to wash ourselves with a pan using river water. But I will leave the details of this until we arrive back in England this Saturday morning.
Bye bye, over and out
Charlotte and Adam xx
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