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After 7 months of no exercise we decided it was time to get our arses into gear and get on with this trekking stuff that all other travellers seem to rave about. To get to the National Park you needed to catch a ferry. Expecting a nice airconned speed boat with food and tea, we were quite horrified to find a wooden boat, where you had to sit on the floor, eyes at sea level. This was made even worse when the monsoon decided to pay a visit and we had thunder and lightening for the two hour trip. Lovely. Arriving we were welcomed by the delightful sights of wooden huts/thrown-together-pieces of wood pretending to be accomodation. We settled into our wonderful damp room/hole (you've seen the pics guys, why aren't you pouring money in our direction?!) Still was pretty cool with floating restaurants with views of the beautiful resort opposite and the locals fishing.
Met Maeve, Simon and Rich (who Denise called Reg until someone pointed out that wasn't his name...opss!) who became our trek partners. A little more clued up to the wilderness, they were prepared with walking boots and 'leach' proof trousers and to be honest, look a little horrified when we turned up in our GI Jane outfits (seriously, we really didn't mean to dress the same/in uniform!) Their priorites were some what different from ours, whilst we concentrated on the more important issues of hunting down ice-cream, they seemed more concerned with finding maps for the trek. Their horror then intensifed when we proceeded to sing all the jungle songs we could think of (In the Jungle, Junglist Massive, Jungle Book & Tarzan theme tunes).Â
Trek worked out to be good fun. We got to walk along the worlds tallest canopy (45m high and 500m long) made from ladders and rope, which after getting used to the swinging motion was wicked. We even made it to the top of the peak which involved climbing over fallen trees and pulling ourselves up ropes on steep cliff faces. We probably wouldn't have done this if it wasn't for smart-arse Maeve and her insinuation that we couldn't do it (just beause we wear makeup does not mean we cant climb!) We even beat them by a good 20 minutes. Its amazing how stubborn and determined we can both be. However, this little defiance trip did nearly kill us and it hurt to walk for a good few days after! Revenge was also sweet in that despite our "impractical shorts" we were leach free at the end, with them getting the little suckers!! How we surpressed our laughter we will never know. Also got to see the native tribes living in the park, with kids chasing after us!
After a little nap of two hours to recover and alot of food we went for our night safari. After the Singapore Zoo encounter we were expecting lions and tigers and bears, but no. We got...a mouse and a bird (seriously they did try and palm us off with this!) It did improve a little when we saw a Barn Owl (Jenna nearly peed herself in excitement), a Leopard Cat and a Snake. Just call us David Attinborough.
Although not our normal cup-of-tea, this was still wicked wicked junglist massive!
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