Not one to be defeated It wasn't long after returning from our failed mission that Jon suggested the crazy idea that now we knew where this bloody National Park was that we give it one more go.. So this time armed with supplies we set off early and actually went in. When we parked up it soon became clear that there were lots of very fearless monkeys everywhere who would take anything they wanted and would show you their teeth if you tried to stop them.. After a stand off over a juice carton, which the monkey won, we quickly moved out of their way and headed for a big National Park sign where some Japanese tourists were having their photo taken. After they were done I asked one of the ladies if she'd take our picture, she nodded and after checking the camera was ready I looked up to hand her the camera to see her standing very upright next to a confused Jon all ready to have her picture taken with him! Suppressing the laughter and with a mixture of not having the heart to tell her we wanted a picture of us and not wanting to miss the opportunity of a great shot I took a picture of Jon and his new friend!

We made our way towards the start of the jungle trek and began walking up the steepest concrete staircase with the biggest steps I've ever seen. It was about noon and the sun was blisteringly hot. Within minutes we were both dripping with sweat and already nearing the end of our bottle of water and not quite excited enough at the prospect of seeing termite hills and tree mould I turned back leaving Jon to continue the trek, which he said was just like being on a jungle patrol in 'Nam!

I went back and sat at a picnic area where lots of monkeys had gathered and were waiting for the opportunity to grab a bite to eat from unwary, unsuspecting visitors who had their backs turned. One French guy literally had his ice cream snatched out of his hand! Merde!

It was so cool being so close to the monkeys in their natural habitat. The highlight was seeing a family of them about 2 meters from me on top of a bench that were grooming each other and had a tiny baby monkey that couldn't have been more than a couple of weeks old and looked like a baby ewok.

When Jon returned from his 'jungle patrol' we had an ice lolly and chilled with the monkeys for a while before heading to a beautiful and virtually deserted beach before we headed back to our bike, now covered it lots of little monkey footprints.