Welcome to Batu Puteh

Dear readers,
When we arrived in Batu Puteh on Sunday the 24th, we all were very tired, because it had been a 7 hour drive. We all split in groups of two. I was with Emily. Together you went to your host family. When we met our host family for the first time, it was so different. We had a family with a mom and a dad and 4 girls and 1 boy. It was such a great and lovely family. The first night we had a late dinner and went straight to bed.
The next day we woke up and had a river cruise. We saw some monkeys and some other animals. After the river cruise we walked for a 1.5 hour in the jungle and had lunch in the jungle. Then we rested. After the rest we went looking for seeds in the jungle. After this we went back with the boat and went back to the family.
The next day was a very special day ‘It was the Jungle night day. In the morning we went seeding the seeds. In the afternoon we went with the boat to the place where we would overnight. We had to hang our own hammocks, in groups of two. When mine and Ambers hammock hang we helped Mathieu and Coen. Around 4/5pm we had again a river cruise and around 8pm we had a night walk. In the first one we saw a few animals and in the last one we just saw one.
When we came back and made ourselves ready for bed. I went to the ‘jungle toilet’, on the door of the toilet was a huge spider, size bigger than 2 hands. I didn’t know how to react, so I just made one sounds aah and stopped, went to the toilet and came back. After that I went to my hammock and slept.
The next morning I woke up around 7 am and heard the sound of the jungle. When I went out of my hammock it looked beautiful around us, different from yesterday, maybe because we felt fresh. Then we had breakfast, packed our hammock and went on the boat to another part of the jungle. Here we planted plants, we reforested the forest. It was fun. Afterwards we went back to our host family.
The next day, we did nothing, we had a day of relaxation. We went to the orangutans in Sepilok, after that we went shopping in Sandalan and to the Memorial park and a beautiful Chinese Buddhist temple, as specially the view was amazing. When we came back at the family we had dinner and we got a really traditional dress, we had to wear for this evening. This evening we had traditional dances in traditional clothes. It was a beautiful evening. When we returned home, the door was locked, we banged, screamed through the window, but nobody woke up, then I climbed through the window, opened the door, broke the door (later it already was like that, we didn’t know), to let Emily in. I felt wrong doing that but at the same time I was so tired and wanted to sleep in my bed.
The next morning we said goodbye to our Malay family and went to the next destination.
Love,
Joëlle