I'm tired and hungry

Back at the trailhead and an after-shot. Dirty and I'm sure stinky. I just took a shower with my clothes and shoes on and cleaned/rinsed the mud and everything in there. Wrung them out, rolled them in towels, stepped on the rolls, unrolled, and hung them in front of the air conditioner to dry while I got dinner. Had dinner at the hotel with a gal from Amsterdam who was on the hike. She's traveling on the cheap and headed for Malaysia I think for a 'meditation retreat' whatever that means.
My gear was dry and ready to pack before I went to bed.

The Map

The iPhoto app doesn't show terrain so I made this depiction. The line I drew doesn't show the switchbacks and traverses we had to do in the trek but it's something at least.

The long hike back

Holy crap. All uphill and steep! It took two hours with no breaks. I had to stop once for about two minutes because my legs were literally burning so bad they wouldn't move. Lots of people were behind me so I wasn't the only one. But some really moved up that mountain. The guides and porters wore only plastic sandals with socks. Jeez.
The road at the end of the trailhead was a welcome sight. But what a great day.

More pics of Hang E

That's the guide Doon. And a porter behind him.

Trekking to Hang E Cave

This is where we had our 'meal.' The gal in the pink lives in Dubai. She's a vegetarian but brought a boiled egg. I don't know if it was the egg or the chunks of pork laying around, but she got up and ran into the jungle to barf. I wasn't too hungry, but I had my fill of pig and rice. Luckily I had a cliff bar and protein bar with me. I gave the cliff bar to Ms. Dubai. She wouldn't take it at first but asked for it at the end of the day. I know she was grateful.

More Dark Cave pictures

It's hard to capture with pictures the immensity and labyrinth of the cave. Really spectacular.

Dark Cave pics

The stream running into the cave. The only lights we had were on the helmets. I have a good spare light with me that illuminated the cave better so I could see what it looked like.

Mouth of Dark Cave

We had a quick break with fruit and snacks before going inside.

Just some pics of the jungle

My phone is in a watertight bag so some of the pics are off color a little. During the hike it's mostly thick jungle with some openings to see the hills. Our trail is a single track, strewn with rocks, boulders, roots and vines. It's slippery at times. Some vines cross the path and are riddled with sticky thorns. We pass their location to the people behind us. They would hurt, and probably leave a scar.
Some in the group wanted to wear shorts and t shirts. The guide made them put on issued pants and shirts for most of the hike. Good idea.
Once at the bottom of the cliff/mountain we crossed a lot of streams. Mostly knee high or less. My good old Merrell hiking shoes with Vibram soles did NOT let me down. Sticky, grippy, quick dry and a perfect match for the thick socks I wore. (I had another dry pair in my pack). That picture of the big green leaves--that is Vietnam poison ivy. It's supposed to be instant blisters. Luckily nobody got into any of it.

Safety brief and trailhead

That little shanty is the HQ for 'Jungle Boss,' the outfit leading this trek. They have a Homestay there. A Homestay is basically a place where people can stay on the cheap at a family's house. They eat with the fam and usually sleep in their own room. Not quite a B&B and not quite my cup of tea. I'm glad I'm staying in hotels.
We have a few guides. Our main one is sitting there. He's Duong. The one who picked us up is Doon. They speak good English.

Ready to go!

0630 on 12 Feb.
Sunrise on ho Dong Suon lake where I'm staying. All geared up and ready to go!
It's an all day hike so I have plenty of water in my pack.

Jungle trek Vietnam

12 February 2016

Short vid (with some music) at the bottom of this post of some of the jungle and cave exploring we did today. There were 13 in our group, plus 2 guides and some porters we didn't see much. It was an 8 mile hump--probably 7-800 ft elevation change ;down going out, and up coming back). It wasn't easy! Humid, hot, vines, bugs, poison ivy, monkeys, jagged rocks, slippery roots and mud. But it was a blast. Quote of the day from a guy in the Belgium group: "Ok I'll be the first to say it--that third bottle of wine last night was a bad idea."

First stop was the back end of Dark Cave. We donned our helmets and lights and entered. We went 1 Km (about half mile) into it before the water stopped us.

Lots of scrambling over and across rocks. I'm sure glad I took that Bouldering class at Red Rock Climbing Gym! The helmets were useful here--saved a lot of bumps to my cranium. We never had to wade past waist-deep water but it was difficult because you couldn't tell what your feet were going to land on. A few stopped about half way cuz they weren't having much fun. But someone got them to finish. Then we all turned our lights out. Yep it was dark.

After Dark Cave we pressed to Hang E Cave where the porters had lunch waiting for us. Roast pork and rice and some other stuff, all laid out on tarps. It was ok but not great. I wasn't very hungry. After lunch we changed and put on life vests and head lights and got in the COLD water and swam 500 meters into the cave. Really pretty cool and surreal. I didn't get any pics of that because I didn't want to get my phone wet or lost.

After that we started the 2 hr hike back up the karst and to the road. All up very steep jungle. My legs were burning. By the end we all knew each other pretty well. The couple from Denmark from yesterday was there. One from Dubai, one from Canada, two from the USA, and more Europeans also.

An 11 hour day, followed by a shower and cleaning my shoes and clothes in the shower too. I got them all dried out by bedtime using towels and hanging them near the room's air conditioner. Good as new.

All in all one of the highlights of this trip, and exactly what I was hoping for. Although I did want to see a jungle cat. There were animals around but they stay away from people and we were loud. The birds were loud too. Besides, most places you couldn't see very far anyway because of several layers and canopies of jungle. Really awesome.

I'll post pictures tomorrow. I'm beat. Driving back to Dong Hoi at 0730 tomorrow for a 1030 flight to Hanoi on Vietnam Airlines. Cost: $58. I hate to check out if this awesome room by the lake but oh well.

Click to view video

http://youtu.be/PoYY_oRUKyM


AJ