Monday : sunny than overcast

Wow another sleepless night, great for when your climbing mountains. The timber bed had no mattress and yes it was hard. I was changing position every 20min, to rotate the pain, and so was everyone else that shared our bed. The bed shook whenever someone changed positions, so I woke up a lot. There were 6 people sharing our side, 2 Spanish couples, and 14 Vietnamese sharing the other bed on the other side of the cabin. Sharing a room with twenty other people was not my cup off tea. The Vietnamese and their talking, snorting, coughing, and clearing the throat was disgusting. The snoring was intense at times too, I don't know how anyone was asleep and the metal door to the cabin made a huge bang and creaked every time it was used. The porters and tour guides stayed up till midnight drinking, laughing and yelling right out side the cabin. Again the iPod was used to try and block out the noise. It was an absolute joke, the Vietnamese hikers and guides were so inconsiderate last night. For what was planned for the following day.

5am eventually came round and the Vietnamese were all insync with their snorting and spitting. Then the yelling and laughing started while others are still trying to sleep.

Other than feeling tired and you could say very disgruntled, we pulled up pretty good, I felt fine, Kim and i had pancakes for breakfast, the Spanish had fried rice, everyone else had soup.

The porters chose the food for you, and cooked the food also, our porter was very nice and a good cook. He gave Kim a good sleeping bag, mine was too small but did the job, I just wore two jackets to bed. The Spanish were not at all happy with the setup. Quite a few times i heard the Spanish yelling at the Viet's, which I'm sure was something along the lines of shut the F up!! Haha.

The setup would of been fine if you were with friends on a weekend away. Well even then I'm sure people would have the common courtesy not to carry on the way the Viet's were. Especially with strangers around, and for $80 per person I'm sure there would of been some sort of mattress. Some people paid $150, and they would have more to complain about the sleeping arrangements, than I have.

Well enough about the sleeping complaints, I am just rambling on. The food, walking and scenery was awesome, I haven't eaten so much since OZ.

We started above the clouds today, I may of over did it on the pancakes though, the first hour of the walk to the summit I felt a bit funny. We headed straight up a mountain from camp, the guide said we got to 3000m then we went straight down the other side dropping to 2700m lower than our night camp.

We were in and out of the clouds all morning, then he said alright this is it last climb to the top. By then we had caught up to the big Viet group that left 45min before us, (so thats why they were up so early they are so slow and needed a head start) we followed them for a while then they slowed up big time, and we overtook most of them.

Unfortunately we didn't overtake the lot because you can never under estimate an Asian with a camera. We waited a good 45min before we could get to take our photos. There were banners, flags, posters, they had T-shirts made up for the trip, they even had 2 bottles of pink sparkling wine. Having alcohol before you decent probably not the best idea. Of course all of them had cameras and had to get every pose just right. That was ok, because while they were all screwing around Kim and I got to see the clouds below clear up for brief periods and took photos of the mountain range below us, it was fantastic! When it was our turn on top we took a few good shots and were out of there, back down to the camp. The round trip to the summit took 4hrs including waiting time ha! We had a quick lunch and left before the Viet group made it down.

It only took us 2hrs to get down to where we had lunch the day before, were it took us 4hrs to climb that same distance yesterday. That stretch was quite full on, climbing down moss covered boulders and tree roots on the edges of cliffs, I much prefer climbing up than the decent that's for sure.

Only 2hrs to go now and that was the hardest 2hrs of the whole trek. My feet were killing me I needed some good trekking shoes like kims for this I think. My knees were not much better either, still a lot of muddy ground, rocky climbs and river crossings to go.

About an 1 hr left I was beat, my feet were shot, every step caused pain. Then We could start to hear trucks then music then voices and I had a second wind. We made it up the last hill to the finish, with green tea waiting on arrival, and Fansipan towering above off in the distance.

What a mission that descent was, I wish there was some sort of flying fox for the way down. The guide did it in gumboots and the porter did it in big Sandals I'm pretty sure they felt it too but tried hard not to show it. Kim's feet were fine her knees were sore though she had scratches and nicks out of her. She had a few slips onto her butt, but nothing major. Nothing wrong with a few battle scars I say.

We jumped back into the mini bus to take us back to the hotel to a shower and dinner. I had a beef burger that was huge and it hit all the right spots, so did the beer.

Last time I saw the time it was 8pm pretty sure we crashed out around then big couple days thoroughly enjoyed it!