Teaching, travelling and enjoying: Part 2 Finally!

Note: I deleted this by accident managed to recover but had to transcribe it. Tenses change all over the place. Only just doing it now! This was meant to be posted in February.

So I may have mentioned that we were going to the mountains for our Chinese break. I got up at the usual time of 6 to hook up with Shaola at 7 to get a bus at 7:15. Then a five hour bus ride to Andoung Tak. Where we were met by a little Khmer man and his mate with a boat. After which we sat on getting to know our crew mates. Two English people who live and worked in Da Nang- Vietnam. ( I only know Da Nang from 'Good Morning Vietnam' and its hot) They were nice down to earth people. Also a German biologist who is the leading specialist for crocodiles in Germany. Nice bloke again.

So after an extensive journey up the river passing these huge boats digging out sand that is doing untold damage to the banks and selling it to Singapore for artificial beaches, all this for 3 hours, whilst sat on a small uncomfortable cramped seat.

We arrived at a small village on the river and then walked up to an information centre at which we booked a nice trek for tomorrow and a bungalow to sleep in. Life was good, peace, quiet and no tuk tuks! Well apart from the fine sand being kicked up by the motos and people. Had a lovely meal cooked for us by a local women's mother whilst we were watching on, surrounded by salivating dogs! You probably wouldn't been able to tell the difference. It really was a delicious meal, fried vegetables and pork and of course, rice. We went to bed rather happy and full.

Up at 6 again, to get to the information centre for breakfast and for our trek. The same people on our boat had chosen to join us on the trek. Our guide spoke little to no English which is useful when you're out in the wilderness and may get injured. So i tried to teach him some intertwined with me practicing Khmer. At the beginning we were walking on a road and i mentioned to Shaola that this is more of a 'long walk' than a trek. I was soon to be mistaken....

We stopped for lunch after some hours of walking at a beautifully secluded spot, with the sound of nature and a waterfall for scenery. It was gorgeous and peaceful. However me being stupid, dropped my plastic spoon on the dirty ground so i had to eat my lunch with my even dirtier hands. Like a monkey.

Then it was the journey back. This was much tougher going after the lovely rest. It took us until 5. So lets do some math. Stopped for 1.5 hours, 7:30 to 5. 8 hours of walking. 32Km. Hell of a long walk. I decided to retract that statement half way through the journey back. Got back and ate some noodles and went back to our bungalow which was another 20 minute walk away. On shattered legs. Thankfully our friends went by on a moto and they sent him back to pick us up. Showered and in bed by 8:30.

Slept all the way through until 6. Well i say i slept all the way through till 6, unfortunately 3 cockerels strategically placed themselves around the bungalow and decided that at 5:40 it was time to get up. I was not a happy chicken. We were getting up at 6 anyway to catch our moto to bring us back to civilisation. The moto ride was ten times better than the boat and way more interesting. So we went back to the madness of the city after the serenity of the country.