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The first day of the trek was very pleasant, we didn't leave early, everyone took their time, there was no rush, and the first stop was to move our belongings over to another guest house over the river for our return. The return lodge was not as pretty as Sam's but it was super cheap and functional with pretty balconies overlooking the river. After lunch we began the walk into the forest, and the first part of our trekking was underway. It had rained and the river was swollen and brown, the forest was misty and hummed with insect and bird life, soft leaves under foot a slight dripping from the canopy and the heat was rising ..it was not hard work, the paths were clear and the pacing of the trekking was well managed into one and half hour sections and a variety of incline and decline, nothing too strenuous for that first day. The major impact was that there was a constant buzz of chain saws in the distance. I was hoping we could get deeper in to escape the sound eventually. The trees were beautiful, I was in a reverie of Conrad's writing as I saw this scene although on the first day it was in daylight "The great wall of vegetation, an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons, motionless in the moonlight, was like a rioting invasion of soundless life, a rolling wave of plants, piled up, crested, ready to topple over the creek, to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence. And it moved not."