I wake up briefly at 6:00, thanks to my favourite propaganda speakers mentioned earlier. After listening to the monotonous ramblings of the faceless talker I fall asleep again until 9:30. We wake up to discover that we’re sharing our bungalow with spiders, mosquitoes and other flying and crawling insects. Who needs Cuc Phuong National Park when you can get bitten in the comfort of your own bungalow?

We climb out of the bungalow to have a late breakfast of home-cooked bread and omelette. For the next few hours we just sit outside our hut, reading and enjoying the fresh air. At 12:30 we’re served a lunch of fried shrimps with vegetables, chicken and eggs.

It’s rainy, but we decide that sitting and eating the whole day isn’t exciting enough (I know, what the hell is wrong with us?!). We want to explore the nearby area. Without taking the time to change into trekking-friendly gear we approach Zoam and ask whether there’s anything worth seeing around here. Zoam brings out two walking sticks and points to our shoes, asking whether we’d like to change into something less slippery. We say “no”, because we’re idiots.

And so, we embark on our hike dressed in flip-flops and shorts/skirt (guess which one I’m wearing?). Zoam walks us down a narrow path up to a fork where it splits into two. One path will take us to the centre of the village. The other path takes us on an uphill trek – one hour up, one hour down. We pick the trek, because we’re still idiots. Zoam shakes his head, says “good luck” and leaves. That’s…not very encouraging.

As we start out we pass two lone horses standing in a puddle, soaking in the rain. They don’t look like they’re enjoying themselves too much, but hey, maybe they’re masochistic adventure seekers just like us?

For a while the path just leads us through a light forest and a few shallow puddles. We’re quite optimistic about the trip until we suddenly hit a sharp uphill slope. The slope is made up of mainly mud and stones. Do you know what you get when you mix rain with mud? No, you don’t get humans. That requires clay and only God can pull that shit off. What you do get is a very slippery uphill slope.

If you’ve been reading these diaries for a while you now know that Katka and I never change our minds once we’ve made a decision, no matter how wrong that decision has proven to be in retrospect.

Which is why, when faced with a slippery slope while wearing flip flops, we decide to continue our trek. We start climbing, using our walking sticks for support and grabbing tree roots to pull ourselves up.

It appears that the slope, while steep, doesn’t go on for too long. Quite soon we reach the top…only to find out that what we reached isn’t the top at all, but merely one of the many mid-slope plateaus. This “chasing the top” game continues for the next hour, with us reaching what we believe to be the top of the mountain only to discover that the mountain continues beyond that point.

On our journey we’re accompanied by all sorts of unidentified insects and plenty of long-legged spiders. Katka isn’t too fond of any of these. When I see an especially big spider with thick furry legs jumping quickly between two stones I avoid pointing him out to Katka. If there’s one thing harder than climbing slippery mountains in flip-flops it’s climbing slippery mountains in flip-flops, while carrying your fainted girlfriend on your back.

After an hour of climbing we reach the top of the mountain. The view from here is amazing – one can see all the way over the mountains and to where the karsts rising out of the sea begin. Unfortunately, visibility is severely limited by rain. Also, we’re being viciously attacked by swarms of mosquitoes. We finally decide we’ve had enough of adventures for the day and start heading back down.

The way down proves even trickier than the climb. Mud slides under us and our feet constantly slip out of our flip-flops. The rain intensifies and very soon muddy streams of water are running down under our feet. After a few near-falls and many more swears and curses we make our way back to the bottom of the mountain. We’re sweaty, soaking wet, bitten all over by mosquitoes, but happy to have made it.

At the end of the road we meet the two lonely horses still standing in their puddles. Well, they certainly lead an action-packed life! When we return to the bungalows Zoam looks almost surprised to see us back in one piece. How many tourists that he sent off into the mountains have never returned?

We retreat to the bungalow to shower and relax until dinner time. For dinner we’re seated with a chatty older Dutch couple from Amsterdam. They’re on a 4 week journey from Saigon to Hanoi. We share our experiences of the country and compare the social systems in Holland and Denmark (because Katka and I, although from Czech Republic and Ukraine originally, are clearly experts on all things Danish).

After dinner we head out for an early sleep. Tomorrow morning we’re heading back to Cat Ba. This concludes our least hectic day of the Vietnam trip.

The journey continues right here. Remember to visit Katka’s Flickr for pictures from the trip.