Cat Tien National Park 16/07 - 18/07

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We were instructed that the only way to get from HCMC to the national park was to catch a bus and then jump off in a village and get a moto taxi into the park. This went swimmingly (pun intended) until we arrived at the village drop off, got fleeced by some moto taxi drivers and the heavens opened. Chars driver had 2 eyes looking opposite directions and Jacks must have been pushing 90 and had lost his marbles. We had a long and complicated "conversation" about which bungalows we wanted taking to and after we thought an understanding had been reached we set off in the pouring rain. Shivering with the rain stinging our faces and our two dipstick drivers obviously ignoring what we had said, we ended up at a river crossing in the middle of the jungle being told to wait and get on a boat..urm no, this definitely is not right. More phone calls via an unknown translator, we headed back the way we came and finally made it to Green Bamboo Bungalows. Never, ever have we and everything we own been so wet, crap, maybe this was a bad idea?!

Next morning the sun had come out, we'd found some ish dry clothes and we headed out into the park. There was a ferry crossing into the park and then we hired a couple of bicycles and went out exploring. All the rain from the day before had made the jungle paths quite muddy but it was still beautiful and the "Heaven Rapids" were looking fierce. The jungle was easily the most dense we have been in so far and walking through the maze of paths we both came out with leeches having lunch on our legs. The park was split between jungle and long grassy savannahs and when we were cycling through the savannah paths we spotted an old lookout tower. Yeh, it was a missing a few steps and yeh, it did look kinda rotten but we thought it had enough structure to climb, and we might see a lion if we do (Well probably not but we will never know unless we check) so up we went. Brave jack went first, stick in hand, ready to ward off the snakes which were much more likely to be lurking there than a pride of lions and soon enough we had both hauled ourselves up the creaking structure. No lions, but a really fantastic view for miles around. We were just soaking in the view, feeling very adventurous, when a gust of wind blew and rattled the corrogated iron roof and we both nearly had a heart attack that the thing was falling down - we made a hasty decent. On our ride back, the heavens opened again so we cycled back to some shelter and fried rice. We decided that we had had enough of the rain and once there was a small let up in the weather took the ferry back over to where we were staying.

Once we got back to our bungalow we took advantage of the free bikes they offered and decided to explore the rest of the village. Char accidentally selected a bike with no brakes. This didn't seem to be a problem until we were faced with a hill and she then proceeded to shit herself on the way down. We managed to find some local rice paddies that people were harvesting so decided to have a rest from our action packed, Bear Grylls lifestyle and watched the peaceful harvesting under way. The sky started to look menacing again and we just managed to avoid the downpour as we arrived back at our place.

We've had enough of rain and so planned to move on with our travels the next day.

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