On Monday morning, Michael headed out for his conference, while I had a bit of relaxing time at the hotel and spent some time catching up on blog posts!!
At 11:00 I met up with Diana and we started walking to the local village…..at least we THOUGHT that was the way we were heading!! We greatly enjoyed strolling along the roads and stopping to take copious photographs….
This is a Jack Fruit tree and the fruits are HUGE. I would hate to be underneath the tree when this one fell……
This is one of the rubber trees in the area. They cut the tree in a spiral pattern to allow the latex to run out. The “coconut” shell that you see is positioned upright in the holder and the liquid runs down the plastic spirals and into the cup.
The tree will live for about 15 years with additional cuts being made each year. It will then die and be replaced by another seedling.
I loved the canopy that the palm leaves provided…..
This is a date palm tree and these are baby dates…..
We walked out of this gate and onto a mountain road that had large construction trucks traveling on it. At this point we decided that we had indeed gone the wrong way and headed back up the road to the hotel…..
Have you ever seen bamboo growing this tall? 
It makes me worry even more about the bamboo that our next door neighbor has planted next to our fence!!!!
I loved the colors and spiral shapes of these leaves…..
I loved these flowers with the mountains in the background…..
And these cool, dead flowers…..do not know what they were….
We saw a few animals as well. This chicken was standing so still that I had just about decided that it was stuffed…..
This little guy was cute…..
And Diana’s sharp eyes found this pea-fowl resting in a tree……
These fruits were huge and we could never figure out what they were. We found one on the ground that was partially rotted and you could smell a slight lemon flavor…..
I had a wonderful time getting to know Diana. She was born in Russia and immigrated to the US in 1992. It was fascinating to hear her story and to realize how easy my life has been.
We had a free time for dinner that night so a group of 10 of us walked into the village….this time with a guide who knew how to get there!!!!
We wanted to eat at one restaurant, but their only seating was outside and it was pouring down rain so we passed on that one. Then we went to another restaurant and the owner informed us that it was “Finished!!!”…..ie the cook had closed the kitchen.
So, we ended up at a small place that specializes in Fried Rice and Juice …..interesting combination!!!!
Here is the kitchen…..
Manuel went next door and purchased the drinks for the evening…..
along with a bottle of green liquor. Here is Diana posing expectantly…..
however the taste was very strong and not very good. While trying to figure out exactly what it was, Manuel read on the label that it was “Disposed” Wine (rather than Distilled) and we decided that said it all!!!
We had a spicy cucumber dish that was shared by the table. Michael ordered “Thai Acid Rice” which was VERY hot. Mine was Spicy Pork Rice and it was excellent. My favorite were the fried yams that had a sprinkling of sweetened condensed milk.
Diana ordered a fish soup that came with spoons to share…..
Several people wanted to eat with chopsticks so Bonnie “signed” chopsticks by moving her fingers in a scissor motion, and they brought out……scissors!!!! The waitress laughed when Michael found the chopsticks and pointed to what we really wanted!!!!
They finally kicked us out so that they could clean up and go home!!!!!
The walk back to the hotel was wonderful!!! It was raining AND dark and it was such fun to listen to the rain and forest sounds all around us!!!!
Another night of peaceful sleep ensued!!!