The weather is terrible, but we optimistically head out to the agency to begin our 2 day trek up Fansipan. We had one guide a lady porter. She was just incredible. I couldn't believe the weight of her basket and she was carrying 2 trays of eggs on the very top. There were 2 groups with the agency, we were part of a small group of 6 and then there was a huge group of students in the other group. Naturally we started chatting to the students who were super friendly offering us all their sweets and treats during the breaks. During lunch they pulled out a karaoke microphone and sang lots of Vietnamese songs. It was really fun. For lunch we had a yummy egg, pork and salad baguette (I must say the bread was the nicest I've had in a a long time)!! After lunch we headed off and naturally with that many people there was a breakoff and myself and Will marched on ahead. I'm not going to lie, there wasn't much of a view going up and the fog was quite settled. We made it to basecamp I'm no time. The trek was very well laid to be honest, still very steep but easily doable without a guide! In fact we did 60% of the trek without the group anyway! Unfortunately you're not allowed to trek it without a guide 😔 When we got to basecamp we were very tempted to carry on to the top but met some English people and got chatting instead. To be honest we could barely see our hand in front of our face at this point so it was the right decision at the time, or so we thought...
That evening we all ate dinner together and was so called we all just jumped into our sleeping blankets. We were sharing the slab of wood for a bed with the other 4 people in our group who were from Singapore. In the evening we played Werewolf which was really fun!! (Will was a terrible liar and kept forgetting his character!). To be honest we didn't sleep a wink all night, one room were chatting, the father was snoring all night and there was a huge storm again, it was a bit of a nightmare to be honest. We then got woken up at 3am to see if we wanted to start early to see sunrise... Uh hell no, we could barely see the door to our room (yes the fog came in our room!).Read more
Our guide then brought in our breakfast... It's 3am!! He's mental! We all then went back sleep, well attempted, before finally getting up and heading out around 6:30am. The rest of our group decided they would get the cable car back down from the top so me and Will were the only ones left to hike. So we headed up on our own again to reach the top. Let's just say the weather was god awful, we were soaked to the bone, we were freezing cold but we got to to the top and we were starving! Well having breakfast at 3am has that effect... We met a lovely couple from Belgium who were presented medals and a certificate from their guide. We were very jealous 😔 They leant us their medals so we could get a photo at the top. We were now super happy! 😊 We then got lost in the fog walking round the site at the top which is full of Buddha statues, Temples, Pagodas and signs in Vietnamese. This is when a guide would have been useful!! Emotions were running low so when we eventually found our way back we stopped in the cafe for an apple and cinnamon tea. Yum yum yum it was like having a warm caramelised apple doughnut. We then headed back to basecamp to have lunch and pic up our bags. I think this was the hardest bit of the walk to be honest. I was so cold and wet and hungry now. As the others in our group had got the cable car down I think our guide just cooked all the food anyway so we had quite a feast... and it was warm!! ☺️
We then set off in high spirits and made pretty good progress, but it's always the last hour that's a killer. Let's just say there was mostly silence... It's supposed to take about 7 hours to get down and we did it in 6 including stopping for lunch which was pretty good to say it was horrific weather wise. The worst part of the day was having to wait for a minibus to pick us up for over an hour. We were so so cold and weren't anticipating the wait so it was a bit of a shock!
We then went to pick up our stuff, move hostel and have a long hot shower. Oh my goodness it felt so good!! We are in dorm rooms as its so busy in Sa Pa but it has a hot shower, a comfy bed and so far it's quiet. Can't ask for more!
And the highlight of our day... We did it... We gave in... We had a chicken burger. Its our first burger in 3 months and I was so worried it wouldn't be good but wow it was soooo good and the chips were perfectly cooked and they had mayo! I was in mayo heaven 😍 The perfect end to a not so perfect day.Read more