It’s been a fairly easy going couple of days for us, and as we’d settled in nicely we decided to take an excursion out of town; we’ve traveled approximately 30km North by taxi to the near-idillic Rivertime Resort near Thadindeng Village, an eco-lodge where we’ll be staying for the next two days before heading back to the city.

It would be pretty easy to just come here and hang out on the floating riverside restaurant with a couple of frosty-cold drinks; something we were seriously contemplating before deciding to spend the day on more constructive pursuits. We roamed around the 15 minute forest trail (which was more like a paved walk ending in a kids adventure playground) and after eating a tasty lunch we headed across the river on a “Forest Walk” arranged by the lodge.

We weren’t expecting to see swathes of creatures and exotic flora here (this isn’t Madagascar after all), but unfortunately this 2 hour forest “hike” ended after about an hour and a half, mostly through open patches of arid land, and ending up in a visit to the local village (which didn’t really hold that much fascination for us).

Arriving back at the lodge, we decided to go with our original plan and down those frosty-cold drinks, sitting on the river as the sun went down.