The Digital Hunter Part Deux or the Resort Quest.

I left off where the big grey elephant bum came into view. After a moment of awestruck silence, a little red car drove up and all the clowns piled out and started screaming about the elephant. We drove off then, seeing as we had no desire to be charged at.

My aunt had made a reservation at a place called Monarch. She heard all the rooms were machans (treehouses). This thrilled the girls (and me) to bits, because in spite of elephant-proof fences, they still came in. We drove through the village of Masanagudi. It's one street and that's it, folks.

We drove down very curvy lanes 'til we found the resort. We had to wake the manager from his afternoon nap. That should have been the clue that all was not well. After being greeted by the three mastiffs that guarded the grounds, the youngest and I came close to being gored by a wayward cow. When the cows wander onto a resort's property, the dogs are trained to chase them off. We did not know this and were happily getting out of the Jeep only to be greeted by a steer running toward us. That was the fastest I moved in a while.

We then went to our machans. My aunt summed up the false advertising by jumping from the steps onto the ground which was a foot below. Some treehouse. "Okay, we can live with that," was the general consensus. I then went to the bathroom to freshen up. I saw the cutest frog doorstop in the bathroom...until it took a leap towards me. I ran out and checked the other machans. They all had similar welcoming gifts in the bathrooms. This is the jungle after all.

We were starving and ordered lunch. Lunch did not arrive for an hour. We grabbed the fries when they came. The kitchen thoughtfully put pepper on the fries. We thought it was pepper until we saw the size and squishiness of one of the peppercorns. That ain't no pepper. Now our nerves were beginning to be a little shot. Dusk was falling. My mother suggested we call the Jeep back. We agreed we could use a drive around. I went to my room to pull back the covers when lo and behold there was lizard poo on the pillowcases. Now I will forgive the runaway cow, the bumpy Jeep and even the protein in my fries, but I refuse to sleep on lizard crap.

We packed post-haste and called a place my aunt had been to before. ...