Monday 14 December

The sheet creeps in the night. I don't want to worry about it, just sleep. We awake to the alarm. Ah! It's 8 and we are supposed to be at breakfast! We are about 15 min late. oh well. We still make it second. We are waited on by a group of hovering men. After we finish we get a run down of our visit here. Today is a free day with a guided bike tour in the afternoon. We relax until late morning, keeping warm in bed. We decide to check out the river and the small town here. It's a short walk to the river. There is a guide standing on the bank who points out two different types of crocodiles. The bigger larger one by itself is the dangerous one and the two smaller ones eat fish. But they look pretty content to lie in the island beach. It's not quite as forestry as I thought. But apparently there are tigers and leopards. It's actually very warm out in the middle of the day. We walk up the Main Street. It's very very quiet. Hardly any tourists. There are a few owners sitting outside of stores waiting for customers. It's not very inviting when there is hardly anyone about. It feels very sad that the earth quake and political upset with India has scared tourists off so much! Our guide told us it's usually bustling! We look out for an ATM. There are some small chicks racing about around and away from their mother hen. The are entertaining! We turn and walk back toward the hotel. We meet some others from our group walking about and stop to chat a bit. We find a working ATM, then We get water and some biscuits. Back at the hotel the others are going to look for ATMs and momo's (dumplings). Malcolm heads out the check the river again. I relax on our balcony eating snacks waiting for some things to download, then go and find them! It's not too hard. There's not many restaurants open. The food takes a long time to come. I think they make it all from scratch. Trying to conserve the gas and power no doubt. It's approaching 3pm when we return, so we relax a short while before joining together to take a bike ride through the countryside on local village. It's mostly just dirt tracks. There are lots of yellow flowered crops. It looks pretty. In a small village there is a group of tourists helping to mud plaster over elephant grass on a traditional house. There are animals tethered in front of houses of in shelters. We bike around to a small museum. Outside there is a very long swing made out of what looks like bamboo, but I'm not sure. Small children are having a great time on it. As we continue we come up to a house where there is a wedding. Our guide thinks it's perfectly fine to crash it! If course we are not sure. We already stand out in our non wedding clothes. We all feel embarrassed, but seem to be accepted ok. We are even offered food! We get selfies at request of some of the girls. Patrick from our group does some dancing. I'm relieved to leave! So conspicuous! Our guide has crashed many weddings. Apparently it's normal. And tons of extra food is prepared for these extra guests. The pots looked huge! Biggest I've ever seen! At a bridge we look for large fish. There is a temple across the river. It was so noisy I thought maybe it was another wedding. We drive back to the river to look out for animals as it's dusk, but only birds and the small alligators. The big one that has gone is apparently a man eater and has killed two ppl in the last year!
We pay for our trip and then agree one hour then we will go out for dinner. We figure by the time we order and the food is made it will be much later. The food is abundant and reasonable. I cannot eat too much so I end up sharing it with the Aussie couple who didn't order enough. I'm a little gutted that my drink was taken away before I'd finished it. But by the time I realised it, it was too late. It's only 8pm when we are all done. We sit around a fire and chat before heading to bed.