Day Two: Into the Jungle...

On day two we decided to go back to Avalanche. The kids and I had had such an amazing time there last time and we wanted Sarah and the Husbands to visit too - even though we knew it would be a challenge getting us all there in one piece!

Through Raj, we booked the monster truck that the centre uses so that we could get Sarah in there (walking the hour or so in just wouldn't have worked and in hindsight it's a good job the truck came in with us - see later). We met with 4 of the cooks from Avalanche who were coming in with us for the day and had said they wanted to cook for us. It was great to see them again especially as they had looked after us so well when we had stayed at Avalanche the first time.

The truck took about 2 hours from the hotel to Avalanche. We went through the most beautiful countryside surrounded by tea plantations and hills to die for.

It's so hard to describe what this journey is like. I'm not sure anyone believed Es, Josh and I when we tried to explain....

We took some video this time which, if you are patient, will give you an example of what the journey is like:

Fortunately there hadn't been a lot of rain over the past few weeks which is really unusual for this time of year (monsoon) so the roads were fairly dry. Well at least they were on the trip in......!

On the way in the driver suddenly said to us (me and Sarah were in the front seat) "pug mark". He pointed down to the ground and there, as clear as anything was a tiger foot print (they call them pug marks). The cooks know about these things and reckoned it was a couple of hours old!!.

Seriously, we were in an opened back truck with a tiger having been on the same road 2 hours before. This was not some wildlife sanctuary with guides with shotguns 'just in case. No, this was just the Hiders & Husbands and a few Indian friends alone in the (real) jungle with tigers not far off!!!

Once in Avalanche, (a major feat in itself), we set off to a waterfall nearby the camp (the one where Esme did the abseil?). Sarah did incredibly well and managed (with some help) to get to this waterfall. Sarah said she felt 'normal' (physically) for the first time for ages today!!

Wow! Considering she had a hip operation 6 months ago she didn't do bad eh.....?

Some pics of us all (well not Sarah and I) climbing up and then sliding down the waterfalls:

Once our kids and the Husbands had spent some time climbing up (an shimmering down) the waterfall we all walked back to the camp where the cooks had cooked us a gorgeous meal of roast beef and roast potatoes (!!!) and some rice and curry. Fantastic!

We were wet through as the rain had come by now and then, as we eat our lunch the rain really came down. Cannot describe how hard the rain comes down in the jungle here. It rain solidly for a couple of hours and so, when we were ready to go home on the truck you can imagine how totally flooded the roads were.

Unbelievable!

It took a good 2 hours to get out of the jungle with us needing to stop often to dig us out of holes and floods - such fun but what a challenging ride on the but!!

We finally got back to our (posh) hotel and rolled up in the monster truck at the front door!!! The concierge guy nearly had heart failure. Out we jumped and walked through reception: soaked, muddy and generally in a state - what a laugh!!!

A sensational day......Kids were absolutely shattered and so were the parents!!