March 25

March 25th 2002

Jacques makes tea and toast for breakfast and we sample his wife�s home made jams - banana, papaya, and lychee, delicious, we are particularly fond of the lychee. We chat and discover that the weird noise I heard last night was elephants in the distance, apparently the herd do come up to the farm sometimes, but are about 4 hours trek away now. This place is wonderful, so tranquil. Jacques farms bananas, lychee, mangoes, pineapples, avocadoes, jackfruit, julienne, and muff thai {my favourite.} Been bitten to bits here although we all have mosquito nets over the beds, 9 new bites and 3 going bad.

Jacques tells us he doesn�t feel well as he drives us to the National Park, we have a fairly steep 45 minute trek through jungle to a waterfall {this one has water} The Butterflies here are huge and in amazing technicolour! The waterfall is lovely and cold, Jonathan is in there having a jacuzzi Pete and Wi go for a paddle. I stay back in shade as too many mozzies and wasps about. We get back to find Jacques, who stayed in his car worse, running a fever and looking dreadful. He drops us at a caf� en route to the Malaria Clinic.

We have lunch then take a bus to the market instead of our trip to Chanthaburi, Wi says she will cook this evening. We catch another bus and walk to Jacques place to see how he is and get a lift back to the farm from a friend of his. His wife gives us a rice steamer full and cooking to take with us. Pretty horrendous ride up the steep hill in a pick up with foam covered planks for seats and no back on it, we thought he�d drop us where the minibus did, but no Evil Kneavel decided to go for it, Pete and I stared in horror as we careered over the bridge {steep drop} with about a quarter of the wheel on the road and rest in mid-air!! �Oh dear� we said. Poor Glenn is sliding towards the open back, still clinging to the rice pot between his feet! Was this the ride of our life?

Wi cooks while we have a hose down {cold water showers here � none of your namby pamby hot water � we are the Intrepid Backpackers now you know} She refuses our offers to help so we adjourn to drink beer on the patio. A feast tonight 3 main courses and sticky rice with coconut milk and fresh mango, all cooked on 1 ring we discover later � what a hero! We'd bought candles so we ate by candle light, then let off some fireworks � quite spectacular! We lit the sparklers and waved them around making pretty patterns in the dark Pete and Jonathan volunteer for washing up, then we settle down to play Cheat again. It was a really fantastic evening, full of fun and laughter.