It was supposed to be just one of those adventurous and fun filled outing trips for all of us. And boy it was adventurous! We had made extensive planning for this for about 2 months now. We were prepared for the entire trip but for the actual events that transpired.
The trip started as planned. We had booked a 25-seater coach for the trip. The original plan was to rent out an RV but then with 22 people signing up for the trip, RV wasn’t an option anymore. Lucky for us there weren’t as many children in the group which meant more fun time for the adults. This was a weeklong trip into the rural part of the state. We got a wooden lodge reserved for us for the entire week. This lodge could accommodate 35 guests, so we were glad that we could stay together in the same place. We would also do a lot of camping and outdoorsy activities. The planning was perfect and the execution was also perfect. So far.
One of my friends was driving the bus, we figured it was more fun to drive it ourselves than get a driver. It wasn’t a long bus, probably a little bigger than a van. We loaded all our supplies that will last us for 10 days just in case. We had extra fuel just in case and out we go.
The trip was fun. Driving the bus through the rural roads was the experience we wanted. In our excitement none of us was actually paying attention to the weather which had changed drastically in the last couple of days. It was pouring cats and dogs upstream and the water levels have gone up from bad to worse. Most of the levees were ready to give up and here we were oblivious to all of this coming our way. The rain started coming down on us starting with a drizzle and went to a full fledged storm. We could hardly see the roads now and there was water everywhere. We still knew where we were, thankfully, but that wasnt really helping. Finally one of our friends suggests that we were near a village where he knew some folks (old family friends) who moved there recently. At this point there wasnt anything that we could do so the options were either drop by unannounced at their place or turn around and try to find a decent spot to stay. The popular vote was to head back and we turned around. As we started moving back, we saw that one of the bridges was now overflowing with water and our bus cannot stand the flow the water anymore. This leaves us no choice but to drop by this place now.
It was early evening by the time we reached their place and the rain had subsided a bit turning back into a medium drizzle from the downpour. This place was probably the most creepiest of the places we seen so far. It was hardly a village like my friend put it. It was more like 2 houses on an island connected with just 2 bridges fully overflowing with water in the middle of nowhere. Our bus cannot cross the bridge because of the water, so we had to take an old wooden bridge to get onto the island. We packed all our necessities for the night and started walking towards this house.
The two houses on the island were close to each other divided by green fields full of rice paddy. As the rain died down, we could smell the evening scent of fresh crop drenched in rain and ready for harvest. We were hopeful that this might actually turn out to be something exciting in itself. And we were right on the exciting part.
ok ok … me waiting for the next part…….