Life by the River

---

Geo: 5.01965, 117.746

Breakfast was at 7am, and considering some of our other starts, this was not too bad. A quick piece of watermelon, a cup of tea and a chat with a couple from Norwich, we were loaded into the boat to go down to Abai Village lodge for our village visit and to plant another tree, as we did in Brazil.

We were shown to our cabin by our guide known as bones (Erdy). Pretty much identical to the last lodge we stayed in, although there was air con of you fancied paying £20 for the night. We didn't!! Such cheap skates!! After a nap, we met the other 9 people in our group and went to plant our tree. It was a type of umbrella tree, each given their own ID number, etched into a strip of aluminium. Apparently we can email them in a few years to see how our tree is doing :/ James dug his own hole to plant it in, I used one already dug, as with 11 people to get through we would have been there forever.

We then hopped over the river to visit the village, see the school, say hello to a few small children and to register our trees in the book. For some in our group, the heat of the midday sun and the conditions were both a bit of a shock.

After a spot of lunch (more prawns and rice 😊 ) james got into a conversation with two young English lads about football. Luke was 12 and Sasha I would guess was abt 8. It lasted about an hr. Myself and Luke's mum had a good natter and left the boys to talk transfers and league tables.

A siesta was called for until 3.30 when we had a cuppa and some fried banana before heading out to on the boat for about 3 hrs. We got very close to a few more crocs, still failed to see any nellies, lots of proboscis monkeys and macaques, but my favourite thing was probably the fireflies, lighting up a tree like they were Christmas fairy lights. The sunset was also spectacular and a lightning storm in a cloud a long way away made for some awesome viewing

We were made another spectacle of at dinner, with our own candle lit table, we were sang to with a Malaysian song this time round, and ourselves and another couple (Amy and Sam) cut the cake and dealt it out to everyone else.

We went on a night walk, which was eventful. Sleeping birds and stick insects I was fine with, spiders the size of my hand.... nope, scorpions.... nope, red cricket the size of my hand landing on James ...... nope and a Cicada that usually makes all the noise going up Sasha's arm .... nope!! Traumatised, I was def ready for bed!!

---