Kays day

Started with being woken by the sound of gibbons calling. I love that noise, even when it's almost still dark! We spent the night in Cuc Phuong National Park.

Went back to sleep again having found blanket for feet - air con very effective = cold me!!!!
Up for breakfast and then a half hr drive to a two hr walk through the jungle. Butterflies everywhere and especially a lovely deep blue / indigo one we have never seen before. Huge swathes of butterflies flutterbying by. Stunning!
Walked up a large hill (many steps) to a one thousand year old tree and then back down other side of hill (many more steps).

Lunch in national park headquarters followed by a visit to the Endangered Primate Research Centre. Lots of langur monkeys rescued from poachers and as pets, they try wherever possible to reintegrate them back into the wild so we were only really allowed to see the ones that can't be released for some reason.

We did get to walk past the fence of the 'semi wild' area though and, just as the gibbons in the cages went a bit mad as it was lunchtime, a gorgeous female gibbon swung by and sat in a tree watching us. Wow. Probably the closest we'll ever get to a wild one! Oh oh ohhh the funky gibbon!!!!

Then onto the Turtle Conservation Centre (same sort of thing as the primates but for turtles - obviously!). My favourite - soft shell turtle from China (I think) it has a cute little snout!
Car journey along very bumpy roads to Muong Khen for a walk and then on to Mai Chau where we are staying the night in a local house. Yummy dinner whilst sat on bamboo floor watching Vietnamese 'who wants to be a millionaire' quite surreal. (120,000,000 dong being the top prize - $6000 to you and me - puts things in perspective)

Now lying very still trying to sleep whilst the sweat drips off us! No air con tonight so at least i wont get cold.
Personally I'm still recovering from removing the very large and exceedingly heavy BLANKETS kindly laid out for us on our piece of floor. I ask you - 36 degrees, so humid you sit still and sweat and the lovely people are giving us blankets to sleep in...... They are all wrapped up in them. I'm dripping in sweat having just pushed them to one side!!!!! Martyn went for a shower, walked from the shower to our room and wondered why he had bothered with the shower!