a travel adventure

I had a chance to travel to some remote villages the other day.

Long - We were out for 12 hours. It took 5.5 hours to find the village we were looking for.

Bumpy - BUMPY!!! I have never done so much bouncing up and down and being jostled. Just think about all of the jostling from the late Texas Cyclone wooden roller coaster at Astroworld. Now, just slow down the speed and add several hours to that ride. That's how our drive was - with a few smooth patches thrown in. And then there were some mud pits areas where the grooves were alomost shin-deep. I was all ready to get stuck and have to get out of the car into the mud. But amazingly, our car made it through!

Scenic - Once you get out of the city, the lushness of the vegetation overtakes the landscape. It is quite green and beautiful. I WISH WISH WISH I had a camera with me. (We did order one and it has arrived to my parent's house and we are working out how to get it to us.) There are bunches of banana trees and palm trees. It kinda reminds me of Hawaii, except no ocean, no flowers and no mountains or hills. Hmmm... maybe it is not really like Hawaii so much...

Jute and bananas seem to be the main crops. We saw LOTS of jute being dried on the sides of the road and even on the road itself. (We just drove right over it.) Jute is dried and then the fiber from the inside is used to make rope and bags. The outside is used for building materials. The way they transport these crops is on bicycle that has a large wooden platform secured on the back. And then they really load it up. It is neat to see these really skinny men with legs of steel peddle the cargo from place to place.

Animals everywhere (on the road) - Cows, of course! Sheep, chickens, goats, baby lambs, dogs And a baboon!! It was huge and rather skinny - kinda like all of the animals here. We saw it leap from the top of a store, down onto the road (right in front of our car!) and leap up onto the top of the store on the other side of the street. I have never seen wildlife so up close before without some sort of railing, cage, barrier, etc. Speaking of chickens, the girl in the front seat was freaking out about the chickens on the road because she was afraid that it we ran one over, the owner would come out and beat us up!

It was quite the adventure. I have to hand it to our driver - he did a really great job. As with most places here, especially the villages, there are no street names, hardly any signs. We probably stopped every few miles or so to ask someone if we were on the right track. On the way back, one of the girls started clapping when we made it back onto the main road back home. Although, she may have been so happy because she really needed to go to the bathroom and a main road meant a gas station (or petrol pump as they are called here) that would have a bathroom. However, the bathroom of the first one we came to was declared unfit and we kept going. I had more squatty potty training that day.