Tam Dao

About a month ago I was getting rather eager to do some travelling in Viet Nam as I had done very little. Now I'm about ready for a weekend where I don't have anything planned. Alas, with Cambodia rapidly approaching, and another trip planned this weekend, it seems that I will have to wait until the middle of January before that is going to happen.

Two weeks ago I was invited to join a group of Vietnamese people who are training to climb mount Fansipan (Sounds like Fancy Pan, and I always think of fancy pants whenever somebody mentions it) to join them in a practice climb up a mountain that is two hours away from Hanoi. As I am going to Cambodia at Christmas I would be unable to join them for their climb up the tallest mountain in South East Asia, but as I am planning to go there eventually and do it I figured it would be fun to join them. Thus early on Saturday morning, I climbed on my motorbike, picked up my cohort Nathan, and meet a group of about 12 young Vietnamese people who would be doing the hike.

The drive up to the town of Tam Dao was quite spectacular, although the town itself was in many ways even more breathtaking. It's an old French retreat town up in the mountains north west of Hanoi. When the summer heat hit, the French fled here to cool off, as it is literally straight up a mountain. My little motorbike was barely able to climb the 10% grades in the lowest gear due to having two massive white guys on it. The town was not our final destination, though we had a quick cup of coffee and enjoyed the view before moving on.

After reaching the gate of the Tam Dao national park, we parked our bikes and began the two hour climb to the top. Although I didn't know it at the time, the mountain on the left was our target, and we did indeed make it all the way to the top. Initially it was fairly easy hiking, what with it being pretty much a gravel road. After about half an hour we spit off of the main road onto a smaller trail.

This smaller trail instantly ramped up the difficulty in regards to gradient. It kept getting harder and steeper all the time. Eventually after about an hour of hiking the trail was very nearly vertical. What helped and made the climb possible was all the bamboo that made up the forest. It was nearly guaranteed to be strong enough to help at any point. After two hours of exhausting climbing, we made it to the top and saw this:

A little disappointing. Being one of the first people up there, we had the opportunity to wait around and eat lunch while the stragglers made their way up to the top. Once everyone was there, the clouds broke up a bit and then got to see this:

Easily a much better view. After a quasi-potluck lunch, we made our descent down. Oddly enough, it was twice as easy to go down as up, and took just over half as long. Weird.

On the way home I shot this short video just to give you an idea of what it is like riding here in the mountains.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqw4tAwMJ4A

All in all, it was a really fun trip.

Last week I went on another MCC trip out into the provinces, this time to check out water and sanitation projects. What that entails is looking at outhouses. Not the most fun thing to do, but it was still an enjoyable trip.

One of the outhouses we visited. Still under construction

The view from the outhouse. I wouldn't mind using an outhouse if I had a view like that.

The owner and builder of the previously shown outhouse

Someone said it is an eggplant. It's odd in any case

A rainy day in rural Vietnam

The path to one of the houses we visited