At the start of the ride, my suitcases rolling along the pavement reminded me that we were going on a long trip. The feeling is as if we were leaving on a trip to the airport. As we got onto the bus, all worries ceased to exist as we started chatting and singing. After about 3 hours on the bus we arrived at a restaurant which we ended up leaving to go to a different one and eat our home packed lunches.

After a bit of time relaxing we headed off to a boat place and rowed into one of the mountainous caves. After a dark, rocky experience, we emerged and gently raced back to the starting point. This is the time when we started telling everyone there were leeches on the roof of the cave that dropped down to suck our blood. When we came back we took a small break, got to know our roommates and where we’re sleeping, and then took a gentle stroll through the mud packed forest full of ditches, roots, fallen logs and branches littered on the floor.

During the first hike, it was very slippery and muddy where people were slipping and falling down. We got a tiny bit of information on limestone and headed on back for dinner. After gorging ourselves, we did some activities. The activities were CPCP, Lories, Turtles, EPRC, the Night Hike, Beans are Bad, Pictionary and a trip to the botanical garden.

During the trip to the CPCP you might see an image of a civet along with some predators and scaly pangolins which are armadillo like creatures. Which will run away from you and not show its face because it thinks it’s ugly, but don’t worry, you might see an image of one.

The botanical garden is a secondary forest or a forest that has been chopped down and is repairing itself. In there you go for the night where you will actually see in the dark and talk about slender man whilst drawing. You might even see some animals like snakes! In the botanical gardens you study your own tree. This is also the place where you might do the survival games. The survival game is a game that you all become some kind of animal herbivore, omnivore or carnivore. In other to survive in this game, you have to collect enough food, water and life card.

In the EPRC you get a tour of the compound where you will later get a primate chosen for you and write down notes about it for your primate report. The primate that you got or chose could be an endangered species.

When we went to see the turtles, we started off by learning and looked at some of the turtles in the ponds and finally walked in a turtle infested area where you are instructed not to touch them. They were mostly staying still like a statue or moving really fast in the pond. The turtles are also endangered.

We went to see the Lories at night because they are nocturnal animal which move around at night and sleep during day. They are very small animals with huge eyes!

During the second hike we woke up and got into our groups to go hike up a 160 limestone stepped mountain where we visited the cave of early man. In the beginning, we were learning about limestone and stalagmites and stalactites which grow inside the cave by chemical reaction. At one point we turned off the flash lights and were engulfed in darkness hoping that insects weren’t crawling towards us. We walked down and headed back to base for activities, lunch, dinner, free time and sleep. One thing I did not look forward to was heading into the bug infested bathroom.

The final hike was about 3 hours long. We went up and down mountains over fallen logs touching a lot of moss to see the 1700 old tree. It is called the one thousand year old tree though. It’s a very huge and tall tree!

We also had this interesting activity where you have to read a skit called ‘beans are bad’ in a unique way like in slow motion or like a movie star, etc.

Each of the groups made a burst about Cuc Phuong and selected the best one to perform it during the assembly. The second best also had a chance of performing. The 2 winners in 6th grade are, Honka Honka doing Centipede in first place and Danger doing a parody of paradise in second.

When it was time to leave, we were all tired, possibly homesick and sad that we were leaving such a beautiful park. We packed up and walked towards the bus, the wait for the Mac Lakers to come seemed to take forever. We then got on the bus more cheerfully and tired and headed back home.