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Nick & Jodie's travels

(Nick and Jodie are off on an epic tour of the Far East. They will be gone for nearly a year, and are sending back reports via email. You can follow their journey here).

Episode five : on top of the world

09 April 2003

Since my last letter Jodie and I have been away in the clouds and on top of the world! (Well, on top of IndoChina at least).

We were headed north from Hanoi to Sapa. It had been recommended to us by other travellers, a small market town perched on the edge of huge mountains with spectacular views and hill tribe villages. We had bought tickets for an overnight sleeper train up there and were a little dubious as we had not ridden on a sleeper in Vietnam before. After making our way past the multitude of guards and having our tickets checked, punched and stamped about ten times we were pointed to our train. We walked alongside the train counting down to our cabin and when we found it we were pleasantly suprised. There were four large bunks with clean, white matresses, pillows and blankets and a large window that could be opened. We shared the cabin with an american backpacker and a young Vietnamese man who spoke perfect english. We all chatted away for a while and then switched the light off for a comfortable, undisturbed night's sleep....or so we thought. It was approx 3am when Jodie Croft was awoken from her light sleep by the sound of whispers. She was aware that the train had stopped at a station, she was also aware that the curtain drawn across the window was moving! She pulled it back in a swift reflex movement faster than the eye could see, and there right in front of her was a wiry Vietnamese man with his shoulders, an arm and a leg through the window! They were nose to nose and Croft could smell the man's fear. For a few seconds neither of them moved or spoke. Suddenly Jodie's eyes widened and shimmered in the moonlight. She bared her teeth and inhaled deeply, appearing to almost double in size. The would-be thief seemed to shrink under her shadow and his knuckles went white with fear. Then without warning Croft unleashed her wrath - "You cheeky bastard!" she cried. That was it, the man could take no more. He flung himself to the ground and ran off down the track as fast as his skinny burglar legs could carry him. Croft shrugged her shoulders, flicked back her hair, shut the window and went back to sleep. Seriously, that's the way it happened.

The following morning we arrived in Lao Cai and caught a local bus to Sapa. The journey was terrifying with our crazy-eyed driver speeding along the mud track roads that had been carved out of the mountain sides. As we drove higher and higher the drop into the valley below became greater with no barrier in between, and at every sharp corner the road crumbled away beneath the tyres. We didn't dare to move a muscle for fear of tipping the balance of this used and abused mini-van. By the time we arrived in Sapa we had driven so high into the mountains that we were quite literally in the clouds!

Due to its high altitude Sapa is cold all year round, which we were well aware of. We were going for a voluntary winter, a short break from the hot tropical weather. This may sound absurd to you all just coming out of a harsh British winter but it was really appealing to us and we had a wonderful few days there. We would have to put on all our clothes before going outside, so that we looked like Michelin men, and spent the days hanging out at the market or reading. In the evenings we drank red wine sitting in front of a blazing open fire place in our log cabin style hotel room. Bliss!

On our 3rd morning Jodie and I were eating breakfast in the hotel cafe. Just outside was a balcony from which there was supposedly a spectacular view of huge mountains towering over the small town of Sapa below. I say supposedly because during our stay so far it had not been possible to see anything more than 15 feet away due to the fact that we were literally in the clouds. All of a sudden, looking over the rim of my coffee cup I saw the fog dispearsing. Everyone ran out onto the balcony and as the clouds cleared there was a chorus of "ooohs" and "ahhhs" and the odd WOW! The view was spectacular. Humungous mountains dominated the skyline, all covered in luscious green forest and plantlife. There was one mountain that stood tall and proud above them all - Mount Fansipan, the highest mountain in IndoChina. As we stood there gazing at it in awe and wonder we had no idea just how intimate we were to become with this 3175 metre high Everest wannabe. We headed back into the cafe and started chatting to a group of four backpackers who were talking about Fansipan. I'm not quite sure how it happened but within 10 minutes we were all heading off to town to find a guide to aid us in a climb to Indochina's highest point!

One of our group had a map of where to find a guide that had taken someone halfway up the mountain the previous week. (They could not go to the top due to bad weather). We followed the map which led us to an old building under major renovation. An old lady with black teeth beckoned us inside but there was a huge pile of rubble in the doorway so we had to climb through the window!? The lady sat us down on little plastic stools and poured us some green tea. She did not speak a word of English but after pointing at the Mountain through a hole in the back wall and repeating Fansipan a few times she got the message. She disappeared out the back and after a few minutes a young Vietnamese man came in named Thine (meaning successor). After a bit of negotiating he agreed to take us all the following day for 20 dollars each provided we bring our own food and that the climb would take 3 days! We all headed into town to stock up on noodles and chocolate (essential I am told for any mountaineering expedition) and then got an early night. Our companions on this crazy adventure were Franny from Bristol, Yuvia - an American girl, and a guy named Kirk (no, not James T.) from Barbados.

At 9 am the following morning we all bundled into a jeep to take us to the starting line of our masochistic challenge. The first day involved a 5 hour hike to base camp. It was tough going winding our way back and forth through forests and over boulders and our guide set a demanding pace. Our guide kept feeding us these strange dense shortbread biscuits that were really filling and reminded me of the elven waybread from the Tolkien novels. We slept the night at the base camp which had a bamboo sleeping area and an open fire cooking area. As we sat round the fire chatting and drinking 'happy water' (the name our guide gave to the very potent drink he brought with him which tasted like vodka mixed with parafin!) we suddenly realised that we were the only two of the group who had never mountain-climbed before! Nervousness set in and that night I dreamt of falling rocks.

The following morning we set off at 7am and from the outset it was hardcore.The first hour we scrambled up almost vertical mud banks, clinging to roots and rocks, trying not to cause a landslide of earth onto each other. We finally reached a flat area and marched down a rough track which led to a huge area of boulders (some the size of cars) with several inches of fast flowing water running over them. After carefully clambering across these we were faced with our first bit of free climbing (rock climbing with no ropes). This is official terminology which makes it sound very graceful, which I assure you it was not. We clambered up at least 30 feet of rock clinging on with our fingernails for dear life and trying not to look down. After we had reached another flat level and my life had stopped flashing before my eyes we stopped for a 20 minute well earned break.

Our next challenge was to balance across a fallen tree across a 50 ft drop to the other side! Our guide fearlessly skipped across and then pulled a suspiciously thin piece of rope out of the bushes which was tied to an even more suspiciously thin tree stump. With a little bum sliding and a lot of luck we all reached the other side unscathed. Next was a very steep climb through dense bamboo thickets that seemed to go on forever. By this time we were all so covered in mud that we looked like bog monsters from some cheesy 50's horror movie. We were bruised and our hands were cut all over. Just as our morale and energy became very low we came to a clearing. Breathtaking! We were standing on a grassy viewpoint way above every other mountain in sight. The clouds were way below us and looked like cotton wool covering everything like when you look out of the window of a plane. The clouds went on for as far as the eye could see with the tops of mountains pointing through in all directions. It was an unforgettable view and we took plenty of panaramic photos. It was the final push now and we were all buzzing with adrenaline . We put on an extra layer from our day packs, as the temperature decreased the higher we went. After a bit more climbing and clambering and a few more spectacular view points we reached our final challenge. We had reached a very wide, very tall and very steep wall of stinking boggy mud. Our guide grinned at us inanely and pointed to another suspicious rope tied to who knows what, hopefully not sky hooks. We grabbed it and single file started to pull our way up, slipping and sliding all over the place with our boots squelching and slurping as the bog wall tried to swallow us whole. I could hear Jodie just ahead of me repeating the mantra she had been chanting throughout the majority of the free climbing... "I can do this, I can do this, I can do this". I have to point out now how completely blown away I was by her courage, perseverance and endurance during this climb. Jodie has chronic asthma and we never intended to necessarily climb all the way to the top. She found it to be a real challenge (we all did!) and our guide had said that if anyone found it too difficult then they could wait at a safe point for the group to come back down. However, the closer we got to the top the more determined Jodie became and with some sensible pit stops to catch her breath (much appreciated by the rest of the group who were all struggling for energy) she made it to the top!

We reached the top of the bog wall, now a group of unrecognisable mud brown figures, and to our joy discovered there was no more dark mountain sillhouete looming above us. We had made it!!! Lots of cheers and whooping and waving of the Vietnamese flag that was stuck in the ground, followed by screams of "We're on top of the world!" Supposedly on a cloudless day you can see China from the top, but Thine said he had only had such a view twice in the last two years and that we had been extremely lucky with the good weather we had had. After a well earned rest and some lunch it was a race against nightfall back to base camp. Going down was a lot trickier but not as physically demanding, and with a whole load of team work we all made it back in one piece. We cracked open some celebratory beers and were all fast asleep by 8pm, not surprisingly.

The next morning we set off at 8am for the final stage back to Sapa and our guide took us on a slightly different route back down Fansipan. It only took 3 or 4 hours to reach the bottom and we came out at a fantastic Hmong hill tribe farming village. There were lots of crops and tribal women using water buffalo to pull ploughing equipment. There was a large area of bamboo and mud huts and the hills behind had been cut into giant steps over hundreds of years.This is to help more crops to grow and is called terraced agriculture (Wow, I did learn something in GCSE Geography after all!) We walked past an ingenious and complex rice pounding device made out of pieces of bamboo which was powered by a small river. As we walked through the village many of the children and a few of the adults came out staring at us with curiosity and interest. They were all wearing amazing colorful matching outfits which they make by hand and wear all the time. We walked up a path past the huts with piglets running between our feet before our guide stopped to point out some of the tribe's alternative agriculture. We were standing by a chest high bamboo fence surrounding a huge marijuana plantation! We took the final march over a hill to where our jeep was waiting for us and all fell in. Mission accomplished! (It wasn't until we got back that we found out that the previous year a British woman had fallen and died climbing Mt Fansipan! A little more background research next time methinks!)

The 5 of us all stuck together and the following morning took a mini bus to Bak Ha. We had read about an interesting market that takes place every weekend out in the mountains, some 18km out of town, where all the hill tribes come to swap cattle and buy and sell meat. Being right on the Chinese border a lot of Chinese also come to the market, and according to a guide book you have to be careful what meats you are served there if you don't agree with eating man's best friend.

We hung around for a day or so before market day in the small town of Bak Ha. There's not much to tell about the place really. It's a very small and lazy town with ugly fibreoptic lights everywhere that look very out of place and were possibly stolen from Margate seafront. The weekend arrived and we took a bus up into the mountains to the market. It consisted of a large market area with tarpaulin covered stalls and eating areas, and a flat area behind all this full of cows, pigs and water buffalo being frantically swapped and sold. The whole place was swarming with hundreds of different hill tribe villagers all in their different costumes going about their business. There was a long narrow market stall selling hundreds of different types of tobacco surrounded by men sucking on huge bamboo hookah pipes, coughing and spitting between each huge lungfull of smoke. After exploring for a couple of hours we all sat down at a food stall and played it safe by eating noodles with cabbage. I am so glad we did this because I suddenly looked on in horror as I saw on an adjacent food stall a dog's skull being split in two with a machete and then tossed into a boiling pot!

After a few hours, once the majority of people have bought and sold their bits and pieces, the market turns into a huge party with everyone sitting around drinking rice wine (happy water), eating and smoking huge hookah pipes. Apparantly it is not uncommon to see at the end of market a women leading a horse home with her unconscious husband slumped over the back.

Jodie, Franny and Yuvia went off around the stalls to buy some bits and pieces while Kirk and I wandered around the food and drink area. We were urged to join a group of old men sitting on benches around a low wooden table. They immediately thrust in front of us a china cup each and filled all the cups on the table with the potent "happy water". We all knocked the drink back and within seconds the cups were refilled again. In Vietnamese culture it is considered very rude to turn down anything that is put in front of you at a table and despite it being only two in the afternoon Kirk and I had no choice but to keep accepting these generous offerings. Communicating with our hosts was very difficult as 1) they didn't speak a word of English and 2) they were all very drunk. After much frantic gesticulation Kirk and I had not managed to exchange names with the men but had managed to convince them all that we both had 3 wives! Next out came the hookah pipe, a long water cooled pipe that the men were smoking various types of tobacco in, purchased or swapped at the market. There was no getting out of this one either. As one thrust it into my hand another was poised with lit match grinning and nodding eagerly, while the rest of the table looked on at me in excitement and anticipation. I rose to the challenge and passed the initiation without coughing too much, they all seemed to be impressed. After about half an hour of almost constant happy water drinking Kirk and I were near to our limit and looking for a polite excuse to leave. Suddenly the bowl of 'bar snacks?' that the men at the other end of the tabel had been gnawing on were placed in front of us. It was a bowl of raw chicken's feet, claws and all, and there was absolutely no way those things were going anywhere near my mouth! Just at that moment Jodie, Franny and Yuvia turned up and told us that the minibus was ready to leave. Saved! We thanked our hosts, who appeared confused at where our other three wives were hiding, and then made our way through the stalls and back to the bus. The market was an amazing find, a completely undiluted and genuine experience.

So Yuvia headed off to Laos and Jodie, Kirk, Franny and myself have stuck together on the journey down to Saigon. We stayed in the town of Hue where among other things we visited the Demilitarized Zone. We visited a derelict and bullet-hole-riddled church where a famous battle was held, and visited an old military base with a rusty disused American tank parked outside. We also explored the huge network of tunnels lived in by the Viet Cong. They went as deep as 30 metres under ground and were dimly lit and very narrow. Spooky, claustrophobic but absolutely fascinating.

So I hope you are all well and thanks to everyone for writing back, it's really great to hear from you all. We only have a week left in Vietnam, the time has absolutely flown by, but we are planning to head down to the Mekong Delta and to Saigon and will let you know how that goes. We then fly back to Bangkok and then hope to head overland into Malaysia - just checking out the situation re hostility towards westerners, but hopefully all will go to plan. Keep your fingers crossed for us on the 14th of April (the date we fly to Bangkok), as we have heard we have to go through an 8 hour checkup at the airport to make sure we are allowed out of Vietnam, due to the SARS virus. Jodie and I have been as healthy as can be so don't worry, and in Vietnam the outbreak was contained in the hospitals very early on. Anyways hope you all liked the letter and that everyone is happy and well, all our love

Nick and Jodie.

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