Sapa – 23rd May

While Captain Caveman was planning on doing a 2 day trek up Ngu Chi Son, I was happy to be working on Tuesday 23rd May. The peak that Captain Caveman was about to scale was almost as high as Fansipan (the famous one, the highest in Indochina) and shouldn’t be done alone so he had his trusted guide with him and had taken some emergency provisions. Here’s a link to info about the mountain range, for those of you who are interested in finding out more: https://vietmountains.com/destinations/ngu-chi-son-mountain-the-sacred-five-fingers-mountain/
Of course, Captain Caveman was up very early and left before breakfast but there was no way I was missing the buffet breakfast spread. I didn’t want to say it, but I actually felt a bit chilly when I stepped outside to a 21°C! The breakfast was spot on and the food and beverage manager was first class and so lovely. I had a nice table looking out towards some mountains, feeling quite smug that I wasn’t climbing one. The diet had gone completely out of the window as I had cereals, fruit, juices, detox shots, cups of tea, pho ga, bread, cheese, pastries, butter, waffle, bacon and a chicken sausage! Bugger it, I’d lose the weight again when I got back to Phong Nha!

I worked from 10am for most of the day but with a couple of hours breaks, and I sat in the lovely room at my handy desk. The outside temperature reached 27°C and I was reminded that it would still have been a tad warm for me to have done a trek. At 3.45pm I got a video call from Captain Caveman – he had already reached the highest peak of Ngu Chi Son (probably in record time)! He was so happy and even more pleased I’d not decided to try to do it, he said I wouldn’t have made the first 10 minutes! Back to work until 8.45pm but then I decided, instead of going in to town, that I would have a bath and order room service. This ended up being a Hawaiian pizza, which was pretty good but definitely not diet friendly and I bet I’d put weight on tomorrow, on Weigh Day. I got in the super comfy bed and tried to imagine how Captain Caveman must be doing, camping on the side of a mountain somewhere in the wilderness with just a Vietnamese tour guide to provide him with warmth and shelter. I set my alarm for 7am so that I could crack on with work before Captain Caveman returned, which was bound to be earlier than planned.