February 4, 2015
This
morning, we were up and at the bus stop at 6:45am and headed to the National
Park. It was still dark and we drank our
yogurt for breakfast. We made the 1 hour
bus ride to the National Park and arrived about 30 minutes before it opened so
we finished our breakfast and walked out on the pier. It was interesting because there were quite a
few boats in the harbor area just sitting in the mud. We wondered if it was just the time of year
that the water wasn’t that high or what was going on.
We got some advice from a couple of women who were setting off on a hike and then we set out as well. We started out on a paved path and then the path divided and we were on a dirt jungle path that went up steep hills with stairs and was not so easy. Everyone did well and Mason loved it!!! He was excited to be on his first hike! After about 1 ½ hours of hiking, we finally reached the destination. We were at the beach and back off the beach a bit was Miromictic Lake. The lake was just muddy, but it is supposed to be one of very few places where a body of water has salt water and fresh water that do NOT mix. The water remain separated as top and bottom layers. We played on the beach and the huge rocks for awhile. As we were there, a boat came with some other folks and I arranged for us to have a boat ride back to the entrance at noon. Yahoo! I didn’t know if I could make it back again though the jungle hike. I actually slipped and fell and landed hard on a knot of a big tree root.
We were all anxious to visit the Sea Turtle Sanctuary so we walked down the beach to find it and it was pretty cool. It was very interesting to read about their efforts and to know that sea turtles come to this beach regularly to lay their eggs. The sanctuary then gathers the eggs and protects them to help them have a higher hatching percentage and then the turtles go free in the ocean. They had 2 little turtles that had hatched less than 2 months previously and they were swimming around in a little pond at the sanctuary. They were quite adorable. We made our way back to the beach area and had a picnic. We did NOT get to swim because there are strong under currents. We were told it wasn’t safe and that people have died there. We chose to stay out of the water.
We had the arranged boat pick us up at noon – but he was a bit late and came about 12:30 which was fine. We had a fun speed boat ride back to the entrance of the park and on the way we stopped and saw the lighthouse, Monkey Beach, AND the amazing thing was that we pulled up into the area that was just a mud bog this morning! The tide was back in and there was water all around the dock and the boat pulled right up to the sandy beach spot where we were as we waited for the park to open. The tides are quite amazing.
We got on a bus and rode just a short ways an got off and walked over to see the large temple named “Kek Lok Si.” We climbed stairs and then found out it actually closed at 6pm rather than 9pm as I had read online. We just saw it from the outside but then we walked back to the bus stop. We ended up sitting there at the bus stop for 1 ½ hours waiting for our bus to come! We saw about 5 or 6 of bus 201 and we tried to get on several other buses but when we asked the driver kept saying, “No. You need #___. We kept waiting. The traffic was terrible due to the festival still going on. We all literally cheered with joy when we saw the bus and then we rode home. To add more humor to this story, the next day Dad figured out that we could have walked home in about 30 minutes. Ha ha! Oh well. We didn’t know then and we have a “great” memory – some kids will hopefully think it is a fun memory in a couple of year! J We ventured out and found a collection of street food vendors under one tent and everyone had a certain amount of money and they were able to order and eat what they wanted. It was an adventure. After the boys were filled with food, we went back to the apartment/hostel to sleep!
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| A little "mom and pop" pizza oven |
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