3rd march
We arose at 5:00am and if you ask me, that was far too early, not that I had the best night’s sleep! A travel pillow would have been incredible when camping on concrete. But anyway, I packed away all my gear and was ready to go by about 5:30 but everyone in camp looked a bit worse for wear and we had to shake Luke out of bed.
The reason for this early start?
We were going to be heading out to listen and look for gibbons. We walked for quite some way down the hill and eventually we did hear a group of gibbons ahead of us, and then another to the left. Both groups had at least 2 animals in, however no matter how hard we tried, we just could not spot them. They were too far off in the valley. This morning had turned out quite a bit warmer and drier with an earlier sun rise than expected, so we were just a touch too late.
Then the call came that a family of red shanked douc langurs (one of my favourite primates) was seen even further down the road, so we rushed down and just spotted the last few stragglers go out of view.
Sadly this morning was not particularly a success but it’s still always cool to hear gibbons in the wild.
This was the point where we drove back up the hill and offered them all some short bread over breakfast. I never did get used to the breakfast over here and as I write this I am very aware that 100m to the left is a McDonald’s where we are heading tonorrow for breakfast… and maybe also lunch and dinner!
The rest of the day was pretty chilled out and we were sent back to civilization in Dong Hoi where we checked in to the 5 star beach resort, Gold Coast for just £37 per night. We had a little wander, walked on the beach and tried to film the sunset (well, I did, those two went and had a power nap). Most importantly though we got to Dong Hoi city and googled something very special indeed… thank God for Google because we managed to ask our phones, “where is there a burger near me?”
I almost cried when they brought out a coke for me!
In the evening we met back up with the forest director, Hai who took us out for dinner. We went for Korean BBQ which was cooked at the table and absolutely stunning!
Although as he invited some friends for dinner we soon found that the next day – the tourist trek to the jungle wasn’t going to be the walk in the park I was expecting. Long clothes, leech socks and waterproof shoes were recommended on the Vietnamese site, but not the English one which I read.
So I went in wearing a t-shirt, shorts, wet leech socks and waterproof shoes while Scott went in dressed as a human condom.
4th March
The second jungle day was upon us and as agreed I got up at 6:00 but we were not off to a good start. I visited the toilet no less than 8 times that morning and ate an entire pack of Imodium instants. This did the trick and I was able to get down just in time for the tour start, although I’ve still not been able to go to the toilet again in 4 days now.
It was a beautiful drive to get there and after our safety briefing we headed off to the dark cave in yet another national park. I’ve not done much caving before, especially without a board walk and I have to say that between that and the jungle ladders I was really on the edge of what I was capable of in terms of heights.
From there we walked to the cave, also known as the aquarium cave and sat down for lunch. So far things were going well. Mine and Luke’s shoes were full of water, Scott’s were hurting his feet and at one point Scott forgot that his condom outfit made him immune to poison ivy. I thought he was going to unleash his inner boxing coach and punch me square in the face when I pretend pushed him in a poison ivy bush.
Lunch included a few different salad things and eggs but most importantly some amazing BBQ pork which was made with a very delicious dipping sauce, with the following ingredients ground up as if you were making pesto:
Garlic
Chilli
Coriander
Lime leaf
Lime
Sugar
Sea salt
Lemon juice
I for one can’t wait to get home and make a batch for myself.
After lunch it was time for the cave and I dived straight in to the frigid water but got accustomed to it very quickly. Scott was in next, after quite some time and Luke really made a hell of a spectacle of it. He doesn’t like cold water and absolutely hated this cave.
We swam in about 200m which is a lot for me but as we got to that point we turned off our head lamps and were plunged in to complete darkness. It felt very strange for me. I was so incredibly relaxed! The water temperature was great, the floaty feeling was great and the darkness were all great. It was time to get out too soon. I could have easily slept in there.
Although as we swam out, you really can’t see a thing to the sides or from underneath and I was determined to not put my light on. But then your mind does start to go wandering to films like the descent. I sped up a little when I was the last one left in the cave.
The boys got out very quickly but I had to wait for them plenty of times on this trip and was loving this so I stayed in there a little longer, playing in the water and jumping in from rocks. I was in absolute paradise.
However paradise would not last.
We started to walk and whilst we did see a golden orb weaver spider, which is on of my favourite invertebrate species we started to ascend a rock pass… it was very steep and very long in incredible heat.
Scott did his usual thing of saying it’s better when you don’t stop, but I was so very close to my breaking point. At one point I could not go any further and we had to stop for 5 minutes. During that time I could feel my heart beat in my forehead and could hear it on my ears which had popped and most worryingly my hands were getting pins and needles. I’m pretty sure I was quite close to passing out at that point.
But I made it eventually and am incredibly proud of that… and that’s when we had to come back down a ridiculously slippery smooth rock face.
This tour was crazy!
I for one was happy when it was finally over and once again in the van the guide had an ice cold coke ready for me and a beer each for the boys. What an achievement from all of us and I even picked up another couple of leeches, bringing my end total to 18!
Dinner that evening was a feast of burgers, garlic bread and pizza but it was all a bit of a blur to be honest. I had a nap for an hour before dinner and when I woke up I was pretty spaced out.
This walk really took it out of me and I’ve still not quite recovered!
I slept like an absolute baby that night.
