Friday 29th October, Ban Hin to Ban Tom, Water everywhere

Due to the change of route the early part of our walk today involved retracing our steps to Pho Doan before a long walk down the valley to our bus at the road end. Due to the total distance involved today we used the jeeps to transport the group to Pho Doan before we started walking. There was a sense of urgency in this operation from the local guide. As we started trekking we came across parts of the route that were partially blocked by mudslides which could have stopped our vehicles getting out if we had arrived much later.

After a few hours walking we reached a large swollen river which the road crossed. A large group of locals were standing looking at this and not daring to cross. We decided to join them and wait to see if the water levels would drop before attempting our crossing. Approx one hour later the river had dropped and we made an attempt to cross. The river crossing skills the group had practised earlier in the week were put to good use and everyone made it safely across.

From here it was only a few km to our bus and the end of the trek, unfortunately another river crossing lay between us and the finish. This crossing was much more difficult than the previous one and again I opted to wait and see if the water would drop before attempting to cross.

We took shelter in a local house and enjoyed some drinks and food while we waited. The river had started to drop when more rain came and we made the decision to cross before it had time to rise again. Our vehicle’s managed to get a rope across and with assistance from some of the local villagers we were able to get all of the team safely across this river.

These rivers provided the team with a real challenge to finish their trek with and will be a lasting memory of this trip. Most of the team slept on the bus ride back to Hanoi in preparation for our celebration dinner that evening. This turned out to be an epic 6 hour journey due to severe flooding in Hanoi and other parts of the route. When we finally arrived at our hotel in Hanoi it was too late for our celebration meal so we rescheduled that for Saturday night and had a few well earned beers instead.