AT

12/10/11

Another early start but this time we were mountain biking from the town into the lower villages along the river valley and yet again the sun had decided it was summer not winter! We had the same guide, Hoe, as the day before and I hoped he was a fitter biker than he was walker, so water on board we started out along the road for 6k. Once the nightmare traffic was negotiated we hopped off onto a dirt track and into the first village, waving at the kids and trying to avoid the farm animals who seemed intent on killing themselves under our wheels!

The first climb and all hopes of a better biker vanished, Hoe soon realised that we had done this before and was left trailing some way behind! I actually felt sorry for the bloke as his normal clients probably arnt two triathletes and adventure racers, one of whom has no fear of embarrassing himself by falling off. It was on a decent when I noticed the split in the front tire wall and the small inner tube bubble poking through, I made a mental note to mention this on the rest stop.

After a short visit to some caves we stopped in a village and Hoe began to look a bit sheepish, he told us this was normally the lunch stop. I looked at my watch and it had just gone 11am, so we had covered 4hrs of riding in just under 2hrs, whoops!

After a long lunch, or should that be brunch? We went back to the bikes and I was just about to mention my front tire when the back tire literally exploded!

The whole village stopped at the sudden bang and stared at me, I  shrugged, honest, it wasn't me!

So that's a new inner tube for the back and after hunting around we found an old motorbike inner tube which padded out the tyre wall in the front, that's one bike that's going to need a service.

We only had another 6km to go until the planned finish and again this was mostly uphill. I'd not eaten much due to the time and heat so I was now flying up the road with becky not far behind, although my progress had been slowed slightly by the under inflated rear tyre. Just before 1400 we reached the end of the track and the pickup point, a full day ride in half a day but good fun and a nice warm glow after breaking the bike.

The extra time allowed us to plan another trek for the next day and we found another which is supposed to be slightly harder than the day before, we needed no encouragement and headed back to the room to dry our kit.

13/10/11

Early brekkie then a walk down to the pick up point for the days trek. Our previous guide, Hoe had another booking ( or he saw it was us) so we had a new guide named Tan. He came out of the office wearing trainers and a pair of polyester trousers, how serious was this guy?

On the bus I mentioned we were after a little bit of a challenge, he smiled and pointed at a peak in the mist, 1100 metres from the road, we both said yes please. The bus almost immediately stopped and Tan said we would start from here, really? The peak was only just visible and there was a lot of jungle between here and there.

Any thoughts about Tan's seriousness disappeared in the first mile as he strode off at pace, leaving my lanky legs struggling to keep up and, just to rub it in, he would stop every now and then for a fag. I think we've been set up and this guy is a Sherpa or some form of mountain goat hybrid. Further and further into the jungle we walked, Tan explained that tourist are rare here due to the Hight and steepness of the path, even as he said that he was asking local farmers for directions, most of whom were strolling up and down carrying 15kg bags of rice on their shoulders, these were seriously fit and strong people.

Roughly halfway up we stopped to talk with a young guy with a seriously big knife. While Bex and I took on water Tan started to wave the knife around and chopping at bushes, it looked fun so I asked for a go. Considering this was homemade it cut like a laser and was quite heavy at the tip this, i was told, was for bamboo. Tan then randomly asked to borrow 200,000 VND so he could buy the knife........

I genuinely did not have the money, but I also felt slightly relieved, since this was a random bloke on a deserted trail selling knives to random people. It also dawned on me that no one knew where we were, so if I was chopped up into little pieces and fed to the chickens, those would be very happy chickens!

We continued upwards and near to the summit we reached a plateau all carved out by hand by the local village. On this plateau they had built a school with two classrooms and all the material had been brought up on foot as there was no roads, this, apparently had taken them less than a year. Again the fitness and carrying ability of the H'mong was clearly evident and you couldn't help but be impressed. The summit was a further 200 metres up a narrow trail which involved walking over fallen tree bridges and jumping small gorges with serious drops in the middle, but by lunch we had reached the top and had a fantastic view of the whole valley and yet again the sun had come out as we were now above the cloud line.

Just as we were finishing the local birds put on a fantastic aerobatic display, speeding so fast past our little perch you could hear the whump of the air rushing behind them. They weaved in and out and got so close to us you could feel the air rushing past and for a whole 10 minutes we just stood and watched them, nature never fails to amaze!

Now this is where it got fun. Tan decided that we would head to the other side of the mountain via a different route as our original route was back down to the school and use the trails from there. After a short traverse he dived into a bamboo forest and started picking his way through, no paths, no maps just dead reckoning that there should be a path nearby. The forest was almost vertical and I was wearing my merrells, so for all the good they were I might as well be on skis. For almost  2 hours we slid, fell, laughed, swore our way down the mountainside and the locals came out to watch the idiots on the slopes. After one slip where my feet tried to replace my head at the top of my body I saw a H'mong lady behind me wearing pink wellies. She decided to stay with us until we reached a path and turned right, rest assured she didn't miss the opportunity to try and sell us something and annoyingly never slipped once. A lot to be said for pink wellies!

Becky by now had found the one plant in the whole of Vietnam she was allergic to had had come up in small bumps on her arms and legs, good job someone brought the first aid kit and the anti-hystamines! There was just enough time at the end of the walk for becky to fall in a mud puddle, much to our entertainment and some revenge for her laughing at me sliding down the mountain, revenge is always sweet.