Mt. Fansipan Day 2

10/12/2006

Today was a monster trekking day. After a very poor sleep for me, we set off at about 7:30 am. Michal, who had been throwing up last night, decided to turn back after about 5 min. I learned pretty soon that this was a very good decision for her since today was so much more difficult than yesterday was. We found that out pretty quickly as very soon after leaving the camp the trail became largely uphill. There was a long stretch that had a bamboo railing reinforced by steel for up to hold onto/pull against to proceed on the trail. There were also many sections that were steep and rocky and required you to use your hands as well as your feet to climb up. At some points there were big rocks that couldn't be climbed without the help of fallen bamboo trees that we used to pull against like a rope to get up.

This trekking day was much more difficult than yesterday. It was somewhat cold and drizzly. My core stayed warm enough, but my toes and fingers were numb pretty much the entire time. It took about 3 or 4 minutes just to tie my shoes due to the lack of sensation in the fingers. I was especially tired toward the top. Even when I walked on the flat ground I was breathing hard due to the effects of the higher elevation. It took us about 4 hours to get to the summit, which had a nice rock and flag marking the highest point in Vietnam (see below). It was a huge relief to get to the top. We had lunch there, which wasn't very fun since it was cold and windy. We had white bread, baguettes, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, oranges, and apples. Everyone was filthy with mud, which may have contributed to most of us getting sick over the next few days.

After lunch we headed back down the mountain. I soon learned that this would be a very long, difficult trip because my stomach had started to hurt pretty bad. I think the nausea was induced by the hard exercise, as this seems to happen to me when I exercise really hard for some idiopathic reason. Eating a not so fresh hard-boiled egg and a bunch of other food really quickly probably didn't help either. Going downhill is not always as fun as it would seem. You sometimes have to go very slowly because the steep terrain could be very slippery and dangerous. In addition, climbing this mountain was very up and down, so going down the mountain still had a lot of uphill climbs. It took about 3 hours to get back to the camp. I felt pretty miserable most of the time. Once we got to the camp, we packed up our gear and began the last leg of the trek that we had done yesterday. This was much easier and took about 2 hours. It was pretty much flat or had not very steep hills. Nobody cared about the mud or stream water at this point. We pretty much just plowed through as fast as our weary legs could take us. It was a great relief once we made it to the starting point. After a bit of a wait, we got picked up by the van for a ride back to the Cat Cat Hotel. I was exhausted.

When we got to the hotel, we were greeted by the rest of the group as well as the 100 step climb up to our rooms. I immediately took a shower, which took a long time because of the multiple layers of mud on my body. My stomach wasn't feeling very good, and I had bad diarrhea (sorry). I had some bread and jam but had no appetite. I just went to bed. Climbing the mountain was probably the most physically exhausting experience that I've had I think. I don't think I would have been able to do it if I had been sick before reaching the summit.