Once a year, I like to go on a journey without my climbing shoes, to see the planet without all his crimps and flat holds…;-)
At the end of November, I jumped on a plane from Paris to Vietnam, together with Cédric and three cave-friends, Manu, Clémentine and Bernard.
Our goal was to find new caves in a vierge zone in the north of Vietnam. From the capital Hanoi, it took us one week to getting all the permissions to travel to the north and to stay in the homes of the local’s. One week in Hanoi and Bay of Along was enough time to be real tourists!
After two days on a pirate boat in the Bay of Along, we finally found our Vietnamese geologist in Hanoi. Every paper was signed and we were ready to move into the wild jungle.
The countryside in this region was really impressive and completely untouched from the tourism.
For about four hours we drove the 200km north by car, but at one point there was no more street and we had to walk the last 15km to our small village.
The people who live up there, the Ethnies, really live like in the middle age. All of them are self-supported, they eat rice and vegetables and sometimes they butcher a chicken.
During our explorations, we’ve had the chance to sleep in the house of the chief of the village. It was a big privilege to see how they manage their life, impressive…
Every day, we were looking for new caves and with the help of the locals, we found a lot of little caves from 200 to 500 meters long. But the potential wasn’t really big or impressive. The research in the middle of the jungle was a scary thing. Sometimes we found snakes near the entrances! 😉
The caving was really unique. Nothing extreme, but when you do an expedition in a new zone, it’s like playing Lotto. You can find a 10km cave, or you can find nothing. All in all, we’ve had a lot of fun and life with the Ethnies in their village was adventure enough!
Concerning the food, it was a little adventure as well. Beside the pure rice, we never had an idea what was in our plates. And fortunately we took some good Uncle Ben’s and some snickers with us to change the tastes a little bit.
Holidays have to be holidays, and so we moved with Cédric to the Island Phu Quoc, in the very south of Vietnam. Diving, exotic fruit, seafood, cocktails at the beach… the real recovery! 😉
I would say ‘vive’ the holidays to bring good forces and energy for a new season, with a lot of ascents! 😉
Thank’s to Beal and Uncle Ben’s for the great support!
