Brendan: Today was the most amazing day ever. We had so much fun. We went hiking for the whole day. In the morning our guide told us that it would be really slippery and dirty. At the start it did not seem that bad until after about five minutes. That is when it started to get really bad. At some parts of our adventure trek it was like trying to stand up-right on an ice covered ski hill. If you look in the picture you will see that my shorts are covered in mud. Imagine what my jacket looked like. I guess you can imagine how it got there. Not long after we left we found ourselves getting walking sticks made. The locals were making them out of bamboo. To make them the right height they used a machete to cut them. At the bottom of the stick you cannot make it into a spear at the bottom because bamboo is hollow. You would have to only make a point one side. Later in the day we had to scale a little cliff that was a mud slide. We had to dig into the wall with our fingernails and our feet to make little steps. Sometimes it worked. Often it did not. After we got down that, we were walking on a road and we thought it was going to be easy until our guide told us that we had to exit the road and continue down the mountain. After, it was really hard. It felt as if we were going to fall straight off the mountain. Dad had a good slip, and I thought we would lose him into the dam below.
Deb: It was an incredible day! Had I known that the trek would be so treacherous, we would never have ventured out. Su Mai, our guide, had warned us that the trail might be slippery, but it was the worst that I had ever experienced (and later, Su Mai would admit that it was the worst she’d seen in 8 years giving the tour). The boys loved getting dirty. I gave up after two minutes on maintaining any semblance of cleanliness and just gave into it. Soon our shoes were sloshing in heavy brick-red mud right up to the top of our running shoes. Our legs, arms, and backs were soon covered it muck as we negotiated our way down the mud slides. Joe and I were proud of the boys as they approached the situation with excellent humour. At one point Brendan pretended that he was on a treadmill in the mud and had Su Mai in stitches. I was sure that one of us was going to break a limb and was relieved when we arrived in Ban Ho village. After lunch at home all we wanted to do was get home for a shower. We skipped a half hour trip to the hot springs pool as we couldn’t imagine trying to taking off our drenched, mud-soaked clothes and then putting them back on. Once at the hotel, all of us raced to the room, after depositing our shoes and clothes to the hotel laundry. After showering, the boys retreated to do their schoolwork, Deb for a nap and Joe to check emails and update the blog – at least until the power went out! After eating so richly for the past few days, we were content to enjoy some simple sandwiches and cold drinks for dinner and then to retire early following chatting with the locals and other guests. Deb did have an outing to another hotel to check on TV coverage of Wimbledon finals tomorrow night.
Deb: It was an incredible day! Had I known that the trek would be so treacherous, we would never have ventured out. Su Mai, our guide, had warned us that the trail might be slippery, but it was the worst that I had ever experienced (and later, Su Mai would admit that it was the worst she’d seen in 8 years giving the tour). The boys loved getting dirty. I gave up after two minutes on maintaining any semblance of cleanliness and just gave into it. Soon our shoes were sloshing in heavy brick-red mud right up to the top of our running shoes. Our legs, arms, and backs were soon covered it muck as we negotiated our way down the mud slides. Joe and I were proud of the boys as they approached the situation with excellent humour. At one point Brendan pretended that he was on a treadmill in the mud and had Su Mai in stitches. I was sure that one of us was going to break a limb and was relieved when we arrived in Ban Ho village. After lunch at home all we wanted to do was get home for a shower. We skipped a half hour trip to the hot springs pool as we couldn’t imagine trying to taking off our drenched, mud-soaked clothes and then putting them back on. Once at the hotel, all of us raced to the room, after depositing our shoes and clothes to the hotel laundry. After showering, the boys retreated to do their schoolwork, Deb for a nap and Joe to check emails and update the blog – at least until the power went out! After eating so richly for the past few days, we were content to enjoy some simple sandwiches and cold drinks for dinner and then to retire early following chatting with the locals and other guests. Deb did have an outing to another hotel to check on TV coverage of Wimbledon finals tomorrow night.
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