Dusk on Lake Lak

Floating across Lake Lak in our dugout canoes
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Todays was another long drive to the Ede village next to Lake Lak where we would be staying in a longhouse. We had lunch in a hotel restaurant in Buon Me Thut, and bought suppiles in the smallest (but most well-stocked) supermarket in the world, before continuing across a beautiful flood plain to a remote community next to Lake Lak. There we met our elephants and boarded them for a trip through the jungle to another remote village. The elephants were quite uncomfortable to ride but the experience was amazing. Our elephant was called ‘Trut’, and it was quite a small, young one, which we appreciated initially but regretted when we waded through the lake and nearly fell in! Felt truly tropical and in the wilderness – riding elephants through the jungle and then wading through water. Our elephant ate Jane's poncho, which was rather unfortunate as it soon then rained heavily and she got soaked! The village at the end of the trip was wonderful – lots of stilted longhouses with pot-bellied pigs, goats, chickens, cats, dogs and cattle running free between them and under them. Apparently here the main decisions are taken and obeyed by the women. Fantastic…

On the Elephants - very very uncomfortable!
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We sailed back to our longhouse across Lake Lak, where I shared a raft with a local girl eager to practice her English on me. She was from Buon Me Thut and studying to become a tour guide, so had accompanied us for hands-on experience. I felt the ambience of this spontaneous English lesson in the middle of the lake was ruined somewhat by the fact that she insisted on relaying our conversation to an unknown colleague on the other end of a mobile phone. We were sailing across the lake just as dusk was setting in - it was so beautiful. I was the last raft to dock and, after drying off and cleaning up in the longhouse we absorbed the dying sunlight in a floating restaurant on the lake edge. I chose completely the wrong moment to go briefly back to the longhouse and got caught in a freak rainstorm: had to be rescued by Coco on the walkway to the restaurant – have a lasting memory of her pegging it across the planks towards me in hysterics with an umbrella in hand. ‘You kinda had to be there…’

We laughed and joked the evening away in this floating restaurant - magical!!!
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Sleeping in the longhouse was a fantastic experience – quite surreal really. We all had mosquito nets over our mattresses and could hear the sounds of the jungle outside all night – far from keeping us awake, it had a fresh, soothing effect and we all slept really well.