I wake up with one foot outside my bugnet and my index toe is throbbing a bit. I scratch it and see that I've been bitten by something right where the nail meets the flesh. Stinging, itchy and annoying.
On the island we rent bikes to ride to the base of the mountain we will climb. The ride makes me very happy and the view is gorgeous.
We ride into this small village of fifty houses that is near the base of the mountain. They grow lots of rice here as you can see.
We leave our bikes at a small restaurant in the village and we see our guide stop to smoke something out of a bong. It's tobacco. I ask if I can try.
I begin coughing. This stuff is strong! Roman then tries even though he gave up cigarettes two months ago. He begins coughing too and agrees that the stuff is potent.
We walk the rest of the way to the base of the mountain. Our guide leads us up. It is very slippery and surprisingly very steep and lined with vicious looking spiky rocks. I wouldn't want to land on any of those. We all begin talking about how going downhill will be a lot more dangerous and difficult. On the way up we pass by a group of sixteen Spanish people. They look really tired. I'm not that tired but I'm getting really hot and big drops of sweat are dripping down my face and off the point of my chin. Roman looks like he went for a swim in his own sweat. The steepness and slipperiness forces me to use my hands to climb and I soon find myself breathing very heavily and my heart is beating hard. I am lugging 2L of water and some money, and I now kick myself for not having brought any energy restoring snacks with me.
We pass by a group of tourists coming down and a few of them are using climbing sticks to help with the descent. I push the perilous thought of descent away from my mind since I still have the ascent ahead of me. I tell myself, I will be fine going down; of course I can do it. I believe it. Nearing exhaustion we reach the peak!...and it was worth it for the view. Bellisimo! 
Our guide Huong, isn't even sweating. He has drank about 30mL of his water...while my bottle is nearly empty. He says that he can easily run up and down the mountain without any problems. He comes from a hillside tribe near Sapa and has been climbing mountains since he was a child. I ask him if he thinks most tourists are out of shape, he laughs and says "yes."
A Spanish guy who arrived to the top with us takes off his tee-shirt and wrings out about a litre of liquid from it. I asked him if he had poured water over himself to cool down. He says nope, it's just his sweat.
Our guide tells us to be very careful going down and shows us a cellphone photo of a tourist who gashed his knee open when he slipped and fell on one of those large jagged rocks.
Base...I live! No injuries.
We then take the boat to Monkey island where the monkeys are more tame (due to human contact) and easier to see. It turns out they are disappointingly easy to see at the beach. They hang around the tourists who are sunning themselves and swimming. I feel like we're in a human and monkey zoo. The monkeys just come up to you without fear. They get fed all the time by tourists. Even I was going to bring bananas but couldn't find any. Now I'm glad I can't feed them. Roman is dissappointed too and says he wants to find some monkeys on the more forested areas of the island. We take a quick trek away from the beach and ascend into greenery. On the way we see only one monkey, but it is really fat and sitting on a bamboo ladder. He doesn't budge as we get closer and I worry about him biting us since we were warned that they do that sometime...be he remains unruffled and just blinks a few times. He must see his fair share of tourists along this route.
Back to the beach. I swim. I feel great.
At 9:30am me and the two French guys, Roman and Sat (who are the only others doing the adventure package) take a boat to the island that we will do our trekking on. The view from our boat.
Scenes!
We ride into this small village of fifty houses that is near the base of the mountain. They grow lots of rice here as you can see.We leave our bikes at a small restaurant in the village and we see our guide stop to smoke something out of a bong. It's tobacco. I ask if I can try.I begin coughing. This stuff is strong! Roman then tries even though he gave up cigarettes two months ago. He begins coughing too and agrees that the stuff is potent.I ask him if the tobacco gave him cravings to return to smoking, but he says he doesn’t regret giving it up cause he has a lot more energy now and is saving tones of money.
We walk the rest of the way to the base of the mountain. Our guide leads us up. It is very slippery and surprisingly very steep and lined with vicious looking spiky rocks. I wouldn't want to land on any of those. We all begin talking about how going downhill will be a lot more dangerous and difficult. On the way up we pass by a group of sixteen Spanish people. They look really tired. I'm not that tired but I'm getting really hot and big drops of sweat are dripping down my face and off the point of my chin. Roman looks like he went for a swim in his own sweat. The steepness and slipperiness forces me to use my hands to climb and I soon find myself breathing very heavily and my heart is beating hard. I am lugging 2L of water and some money, and I now kick myself for not having brought any energy restoring snacks with me.
We pass by a group of tourists coming down and a few of them are using climbing sticks to help with the descent. I push the perilous thought of descent away from my mind since I still have the ascent ahead of me. I tell myself, I will be fine going down; of course I can do it. I believe it. Nearing exhaustion we reach the peak!...and it was worth it for the view. Bellisimo! Our guide Huong, isn't even sweating. He has drank about 30mL of his water...while my bottle is nearly empty. He says that he can easily run up and down the mountain without any problems. He comes from a hillside tribe near Sapa and has been climbing mountains since he was a child. I ask him if he thinks most tourists are out of shape, he laughs and says "yes."A Spanish guy who arrived to the top with us takes off his tee-shirt and wrings out about a litre of liquid from it. I asked him if he had poured water over himself to cool down. He says nope, it's just his sweat.Our guide tells us to be very careful going down and shows us a cellphone photo of a tourist who gashed his knee open when he slipped and fell on one of those large jagged rocks.
Our guide leads and I'm next followed by Roman and Sat. At one point the guide tells me to step lightly and he hops from jagged rock to jagged rock to show me how easy it is; I keep in mind that he's part man part billy goat. But in the end it just requires a bit of faith in your legs, a fast response in your muscles, and a gentle springy stepping action. The faith is the hard part for me, especially with my creeky knees (I left my ibuprofen at the beach by accident), but I begin to try and go faster. Descending isn't as hard as I had thought and even the pain in my knees doesn't stop me from being limber like it usually would. I feel a greater faith in my legs. I slip around on a few muddy parts but never fall and soon begin to draw away from Sat and Roman who are having a more difficult time descending. Huong goes back to make sure they're okay. He comes back to me at one point and tells me "You are much better than they are." My pride is appropriately stroked and I try to go even faster. Oops...I nearly fall, but recover in time. As the Christain bible says, pride cometh before the fall...almost.
Base...I live! No injuries.
The bike ride back to the boat as very relaxing and a nice change for the body after all the climbing.
We then take the boat to Monkey island where the monkeys are more tame (due to human contact) and easier to see. It turns out they are disappointingly easy to see at the beach. They hang around the tourists who are sunning themselves and swimming. I feel like we're in a human and monkey zoo. The monkeys just come up to you without fear. They get fed all the time by tourists. Even I was going to bring bananas but couldn't find any. Now I'm glad I can't feed them. Roman is dissappointed too and says he wants to find some monkeys on the more forested areas of the island. We take a quick trek away from the beach and ascend into greenery. On the way we see only one monkey, but it is really fat and sitting on a bamboo ladder. He doesn't budge as we get closer and I worry about him biting us since we were warned that they do that sometime...be he remains unruffled and just blinks a few times. He must see his fair share of tourists along this route.
Back to the beach. I swim. I feel great.I will sleep well tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment