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After visiting the Orangutans it was time to syke ourselves up for our 3 days in the jungle.
We went back to Uncle Tan's base to have some dinner and pick up everybody else who were going into the jungle. We had a quick briefing and were given a 's***ty' little rag for a blanket to take with us. To get to the jungle camp we had to get a mini van and then jump onto a small boat to take us about 1 hour down river.
When arriving we were welcomed by Leo (one of the guides,) who then showed us to where we would be sleeping.. basically a hut with no doors and a couple of thin damp mattresses on the floor. We then got strict instructions to put all sweet smelling things such as shampoo, shower gel or any food we may have in our bags into the big plastic bucket outside our huts so the RATS wouldn't nibble into our bags looking for it.
We then got shown the jungle showers... two big blue tubs full of river water (murky brown in colour).. that was when Lucy decided she wouldn't be showering for the next 3 days. Haha!! All the locals were playing football and asked Peter to join in, so he did. The sweaty betty ended up being the first person to experience the jungle showers..
After dinner that night just before 9pm we went and got ready for our river night safari.. only to find one of the girls bags in our hut had been nibbled into by a rat... At this point we knew there was going to be trouble...
So at 9pm we piled onto a boat and set off up river with a strong flash light hoping to see some wildlife. It felt really strange being sat on a little boat in the dark not knowing what was about.. kinda eerie.
Through out the night we saw kingfishers, a monitor lizard, loads of long tail macaque monkeys and a civit (cat/otter like mammal.) After keeping one eye open for crocodiles all night we were only lucky enough to spot the tiny eyes of a baby croc popping out of the water.. unfortunately we couldn't get a good picture. When arriving back at camp we decided to have a couple of beers to celebrate Peter's 25th Birthday.. yess thats right 25.. thee old git!!
Whilst having a couple of beers we got talking to a couple of people who had slept in the jungle camp the night before and Lucy asked a Greek girl if they had any problems with the rats at night... ONE HAD FALLEN ON HER HEAD in the middle of the night.. GREAT ... that was Lucy not sleeping all night!!
After on off sleeping all night we were pleased to hear the wake up call of ' GOOD MORNING.. MORNING SARFARI' at 6am. Off on the boat again .. what else could we find .. pretty much the same as we had seen the night before apart from a few gibbons.. although we were a little disappointed we didn't see any orangutans it was still good.
After breakfast that morning we went on a Jungle trek, the guide informed us about different trees and plants as we walked around.. some of it interesting and some not. After the trek we had the afternoon to ourselves, so both of us decided to play Badminton.. big mistake.. we got very sweaty which lead to Lucy having to have a jungle shower.. ewwwww!! Peter on the otherhand were on his second and didn't bother..
At 5pm we set off for our late afternoon safari.. FINALLY we spotted a couple of Proboscis monkeys sat in the trees.. these monkeys are cool with their long noses and big bellies. And guess what else we saw.. only some MORE macaque monkeys.. they were everywhere. Feeling a little disappointed again that we hadn't seen any wild Orangutans the guide informed us we could have another extra safari in the morning at 6am to go and look for them. Later that night we had a little sing song with the locals before going into the jungle for our night trek.. this trek was very boggy, wading through knee high mud stopping from time to time looking at frogs, spiders, kingfishers and allsorts of creatures.
When arriving back at camp we decided to go straight to bed.. this night we discovered rat dropping all around our hut.. i guess it was another night keeping the rats company!!
We slept a little better than the previous night and set off on another morning safari.. this turned out to be the worse one.. saw absolutely nothing apart from.. you guessed it... macaque monkeys!! No Orangutans.. gutted..
So that was it, the end of our jungle camp.. or was it??
On the way back to catch the mini bus we saw two crocodiles on the riverbanks, by the time i had got the camera out they had gone and swam into the river.
All in all the experience was great and definitely one to remember!!
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