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We left Bukit Lawang in 4 Jeeps, they said a bus wouldn't get through the roads we were using. It was almost 3 hours of driving across a road made of rocks. There were a few scary bridges which were basically planks of wood, just hold your breath till you get across. There were cows everywhere, even some water buffalo going for a walk. We saw lots of homes and the occasional village, still everyone so happy to see people and the kids all waved and shouted hello especially at the school.
I knew this place was going to be bad even before we arrived, I can safely say I will never ever stay in the jungle again. The bridge we had to cross this time was even worse than the last, it seemed to go on forever you could see the running water between the gaps in the wood and it rocked and swayed a lot. The local people wanted to carry our bags to our rooms, for a small fee ofcourse. I watched a little woman pick up my rucksack and then put another on her head - she deserved that 50p. The rooms were awful, not as awful as last years tarantula cabin but not far off. We had no mosquito net, the cabin was made of dark wood so couldn't see what was crawling around with cobwebs and holes in the wall everywhere. Our bathroom came complete with pipe coming out of the wall (shower-cold) and a massive spider. I don't care about the lack of shower, but the bugs are really getting to me...except the geckos, I quite like them now.
Most of us went to see elephants in the afternoon, it was sold to us that we could help bath the elephants that were used to patrol and protect the national park. It was not nice, all very staged and I didn't get a good feeling about it. I didn't take part in the end I just watched, one of the elephants made a break for it across the river...I hoped she'd escape for good. The elephants were told to lie down in the water so people could wash them, then they handed out bags of bananas so everyone could feed them. The low point was yet to come, the elephants then squired water over the squealing tourists, followed by a posed picture where they all stood on 3 legs and did something weird with their trunks until everyone had got enough pictures. I don't think I'll be doing any more animal activities for the rest of the trip, I've developed an addiction to banana and Nutella pancakes anyway & I think this is a better use of my hard earned cash rather than supporting things like this.
I managed to get mosquito nets for my room which I thought would help me sleep a little better if I could cocoon my bed so nothing could get inside. I don't think anybody slept very well, it was so hot with lots of weird animal noises and heavy rain. I was convinced at one point there was a tarantula over my bed, I managed to find my torch and I was imagining it thankfully.
Lots of grumpy tired faces today. Activity options were jungle trek or tubing, the exact same as in the last place. Why they've made this part of the trip I'll never know, this is such a pointless stop. There is nothing to do here, if you don't do any of the activities you've already done there is literally nothing to do and only one place to eat/drink. The elephant thing was pants, they said we could ride them (not that I would have) but for some reason this wasn't available. The only place to sit is your bug infested porch and be terrorised by bees the size of bats or in the little restaurant area with the most uncomfortable chairs and staff who play guitar and sing Bob Marley ALL DAY LONG ... Oh god someone has just got a harmonica out now.
I got stranded at dinner when it started raining, I'm talking big huge rain. There were only so many card games we could play so in the end had to make a run for it and obviously my room was furthest away, the water was above my ankles but this morning you wouldn't have known it was raining.
I wake up and it is better than Christmas because we are leaving, goodbye spiders, killer bees and Mosquitos from hell.
- comments
Carla Sounds like you're getting a bit fed up mate. You're nearly there, keep going xx