"Quack"...

Day 7. Oh what a night... It was pitch black, completely black, nil light in the night 'cept for the tiny orange-glowing 'shrooms that were few and far between. The sounds in the night were amazing though... things falling from trees, deafening cicadas, frogs and what sounded like an old man saying "quack".... "quack".
Gathered my heeby-jeeby, semi-wet, out-of-order, already messed-up stuff together and we all went hi-ho walking again! More sweat... lots more. At a random river we couldn't cross (not sure if the guides planned this or not!), we did a D.I.Y. bridge - it was really cool, we destroyed some bamboo and trees, bould them together, madea a hand rail and all! Even better is that fact that it supported us all, and we made it across the river, without getting wet! We just got attacked by mozzes and odd bugs as we were around the water for too long!
After crossing many more slightly better-made bridges and walking for an eternity, it was very much relieving to find some sort of a fellow-hikers-and-expeditioners centre at the end of the supposedly "brief" hike. It even had showers! What a relief, now I can be slightly less smelly for a few minutes.
Our "beds" for the night would be the floor of an open-sided small wooden band-stand-esque structure on some kind of flat grassy area. This platform gave us a good chance to sort our bags out, dry some kit in the sun etc. Now was the time for a good old general sort out and clean up! After doing all that, we played some games (hand-table ball tennis), ate some odd fruit and stayed under our shelter as it began to rain mid-afternoon...
And dear god, it rained! For ELEVEN hours, hard, non-stop, it continued that evening... We almost had to evacuate our hut as the nearby river edged closer. We were all arguing about whether it was really necessary, but it could've been really serious. I think I had started my "leadership" of the group at this point, so my say had some relevance. I didn't want to leave and run. When we arrived the river was about 30-40 metres away... by about 10pm it was getting on for 10 metres away from us. It had swelled so very incredibly. Something I'll never forget. We eventually didn't leave, and slept in the "hut", still fearing the river... as well as wild dogs possibly seeing us as easy pickings and fancying to eat us!

My planes tickets are wet...