This morning was the Jungle Trek. In my naivety I imagined a scene from The Jungle Book, minus Mowgli. Bears, monkeys, snakes, elephants and tigers…oh silly Rachel. A 7am trek start, resulting in a 6:30am alarm. ‘Wear long trousers and closed toe shoes’ was Chandra’s advice. Sat in the sanctuary office, tying the shoe lace around my leg, just below the knee, of the muslin socks which we were to wear under our footwear to stop leeches, I yawned and looked at Beth, who, like me, already had a nice collection of beads of sweat forming on her forehead. The trek started and our guide, who looked about 12 and was wearing the black, square toe, slip on shoes that all the boys had worn at school with his little army-esque get up, advised us all to keep quiet so we didn't scare anything off and that if we acquired a large number of leeches on our person to let him know because he had a bricks worth of tobacco powder to sprinkle on them… Now I'm sorry if this is dim, but my only knowledge of leeches comes from Victorian medicine treatments that have lasted to present day and Stand By Me, and those leeches are all in water? And they're the size of slugs? As far as I know we're not going swimming. Anyway, bearing in mind the leech comment and pushing aside the fact that if I was in any way threatened by an animal, I followed the 12 year old, in silence. Reminded of the walk up the monestary in Petra, I stared at my feet as I followed, getting sweatier and sweatier and trying not to pant. After fifteen minutes we saw two bloody enormous deer, I can't remember the name of the type, but they were big. A few minutes later, giant squirrels and a couple of cheeky monkeys, ten minutes after Pumba runs across an opening in the forest. I'm pretty certain that elephants are coming my way. There's enough elephant poo on this trek to build one of those huts so it's definitely going to happen. As we reach the top of a hill, 12-year-old-guide-who-has-brilliant-pearly-whites-and-school-boy-shoes asks us how we’re doing for leeches?!? I look at my boots. Holy Hell. There are so many little wiggly leeches on my boots!!! I'd say 25-30 between both feet. I'm feeling a little smug at this point with my hiking boots that have taken up a quarter of my bag. Beth on the other hand… She's not doing well. She's wearing trainers and the muslin socks have gathered at her ankles and in all of the creases are leeches. ‘This is not ok’ she says. I stifle a laugh and look at James, who looks at me genuinely concerned because were 30 minutes into a three hour trek and Beth is not a happy camper. She tries to brush them off her foot and flings one at me (she maintains accidentally). It lands on my hand. I freak out. GET IT OFF. GET IT OFF. I'm waving my arm around like a lunatic and squealing. Army toddler runs over ‘shhh shhh shhh’. Beth and I make eye contact. This is not ok. He covers our calves, ankles and feet in the powder and gestures for us to follow him quietly. Fast forward an hour, sweatier, more leeches, we've seen no more animals and we start to walk down a muddy hill. James slips, backside hits the floor and Beth goes too. By this point she is really not ok. James and I try so hard not to laugh. Beth isn't laughing. Head down she marches on. JohnMiller tries to console her- not the time JM, not the time. 90minutes later, other than a billion leeches, we see no more animals. The walk finishes in silence. And we are back at the sanctuary office, but this time sat on the wall outside taking shoes off and socks off trying to ensure that there are no leeches on the socks and or in our shoes. Beth's shoes are full of leeches. She abandons them and our tuc tuc driver claims the trainers for his niece. The tuc tuc ride to the hotel is in silence, as is the walk from the tuc tuc to our table at the restaurant. James and I break the silence, we burst out laughing. 

Over breakfast I check my emails and due to the earthquake in Nepal my Dragoman tour has been cancelled, understandably. I now have 50 days to plan for and no Chinese VISA sorted. Time to get planning. 

Beth and I shower, nap, read and go for lunch. James saunters in a little while after ‘There's a monkey on your balcony with your toiletries. Did you leave your bedroom door open?’ We don't believe him. There's no sense of urgency. He's not even really laughing about it. We both ignore James and carry on chatting. ‘No really, I took photos’. He has photos of a monkey. Sat on the balcony. Chewing on my face wash. Another photo of the monkey going into our room. We leg it to our room in fits of laughter. Bounding up the stairs like little kids, laughing so loud that five members of the gardening staff look out to see that we’re ok. Beth frantically unlocks the room door and the room is empty. Out on the balcony is the little shopping bag of toiletries I had left on the bed, that I had bought the day before, and the apricot face wash has been chewed up and squeezed out. I look at my belongings and I I think that's all that's missing. Still giggling we lock up the room and walk back to the restaurant. We glance back as we walk away and see him. The same monkey from James’ photos sat on the roof of the room, shaking a little bottle of tablets at us, the little bottle of my malaria tablets!!! I have no idea how to handle this situation. So I go get the gardeners who had seen us run by. By the time they come up, there are more than ten monkeys sat on the roof, some carrying babies. The boys run downstairs and come back with bananas and nuts which they throw at the monkey, trying to persuade him to drop the tablets. It doesn't work, it just attracts more monkeys, all vying for some free treats. They start hissing at us, this suddenly isn't really funny and more a little bit terrifying. Beth tucks herself behind me to use me as a human shield. The monkey with the tablets runs over to another villa roof while all the others linger interested in the free snacks. I decide that if he wants to take the tablets so badly he can have them and I tell the gardeners not to worry, and we go back to the restaurant. Ten minutes later the boys run into the restaurant holding my tablets with a massive grin on their faces. I give them a tip in thanks. 

That evening was the spice garden tour which was included in the tour. Everyone else is excited. I couldn't care less, and when we get there and start walking around the garden I still didn't care much for it. To be fair to the guy his garden had been on some tv show on the BBC which he was understandably proud about and I felt guilty when I said no to having heard of the programme. The man served us dinner in his home on banana leaves. Beth and I, with our new thumb technique applied for eating with our hands, get stuck right in. Chicken curry, fish curry, curried cabbage,aubergine, daal, roti, accompanied with rose coloured water that tasted like regular water and really confused me. 

On the way back to the hotel we get snacks for the bus in the morning, pack and get an early night.