Workshop 2013 Vietnam

JBL Workshop Vietnam 2013

At the jungle river

I don’t believe there are many aquarium and terrarium enthusiasts who haven’t dreamt about watching fish, invertebrates and reptiles in their natural habitat all day long. The river in the Hon Ba region provided us with the perfect conditions; it ran into a reservoir and therefore had standing water and was surrounded by beautiful rainforest. The four first teams at the river Hon Ba split up. Two teams fought their way upstream while two teams set out downstream towards the reservoir. Climbing over large granite stones inside the riverbed turned out to be the most dangerous part of the whole workshop. Sometimes we couldn’t tell beforehand just how slippery the stones really were. Participant Timo had a vigilant guardian angel; he fell from a height of two meters backwards off a rock and was lucky to land in the water, even if it was only a few centimetres deep. Apart from shock and brusing, Timo had no further injuries. If you couldn’t get through the river, you had to climb out through the undergrowth on the left or right bank. When the undergrowth got too dense you had to return to the river. The river water was reasonably clear and, using diving goggles and snorkelling equipment, it was possible to observe some fish species. Gobies, loaches and several barb species were spotted. Back on land some of the participants were lucky enough to find a spider’s web spanning some several meters. You couldn’t overlook the 15 cm long spider.