Wednesday 21st December: Trekking in Yok Don National Park

A good night’s sleep and feeling much better.  I went off to get breakfast with the Food group from the Hanoi Bakery.  A scrummy selection of savoury and sweet pastries, yoghurt and milkshakes.  Our only problem was paying – we have grown used to using USD everywhere in Cambodia and struggled to use Riel or Thai Baat.  In Vietnam, though, they seem to prefer Vietnamese Dong. The bakery were happy to accept USD but couldn’t work out the exchange rate and tried to charge is $117 for a few pastries! We finally managed to exchange $20 into Dong and then paid them out of that.

Vu met us at 8.00am and we took our gear and put it in Room 101 – a little ominous! Our first stop on the way to the start of our trek was the Park Rangers office where the Park Ranger gave us some more information about the Yok Don National Park.  We found him quite difficult to understand and it was an effort to

decipher his English but we learned that the Yok Don National Park is the largest in Vietnam. There is a lot of work going on to regenerate where deforestation has occurred due to the agricultural techniques employed by the local hill tribes.
I don’t know how much of this area was affected by the chemicals dropped by the Americans during the war but maybe some of the damage may be due to that too. There is a huge irrigation project underway and we saw much evidence of that in the forest. It is a little disappointing that it is more a forest than a jungle.  The canopy is low and light, with a mainly bamboo understorey, although there are lots of flowers and low shrubs.  We are walking in an area that is being worked cooperatively between the local people and the National Park to ensure that regeneration continues as well as maintaining a livelihood for the people.

Further into the park is an area that is protected and more work is going on there to regenerate the forest.  There used to be over 50 different animals in the park, tigers, leopards, foxes … there are still some of these animals but numbers are low.  Yok Don used to be a popular hunting area and many of the species were completely wiped out by the hunters.

Vu also talked to us about the crops grown in this area – cassava, rice and coffee are the main crops.  The Central Highlands and particularly Buon Ma Thuot are famous for coffee production.  Did you know that Vietnam is the 2nd biggest coffee exporter in the world after Brazil?  Must try and get some before we leave!  All along the road you can see coffee plantations and, as they have just harvesting, there are coffee beans spread out on tarpaulins to dry on every available piece of flat land.  We also saw fields full of harvested cassava with women stripping the plants.  Vu also told us that there are over 55 different ethnic groups in Vietnam and over 40 of them live in the Central Highlands.  He claims that they live quite harmoniously but I have read that recently there has been unrest in the area although I think it is due to the “Montagnards” (the mountain tribes) being discriminated against by the ruling groups in Vietnam rather than inter tribal discontent.

I believe that during French rule there had been some attempt to divide and rule and that some groups had fled to Cambodia. The US also “made use” of certain groups during the Vietnam war but I am unclear of the details. Certainly the Viet Cong were active in the area and I believe that the mountain tribes acted as a sort of resistance movement.

The two girls who were sick yesterday struggled again today with headaches, nausea and some dizziness.  One of them also struggled with tightness in her chest early on in the trek but settled down once she had a break.  It was very humid and hot and we all found that challenging to cope with.  Both of them complained little and stoically carried on.  I too developed a headache again as the day wore on and couldn’t shake it off until later on when we had an opportunity to cool down in the river.  I am sure that it is linked to the heat and humidity/high pressure so will just have to keep an eye out and monitor how they get on.

We walked for an hour or so after crossing the river this morning in a dugout canoe – with an outboard motor!  Stopped for lunch in a shady spot which was delicious.  When we set off we were all given a short bamboo stick which was surprisingly warm. The mystery of the stick was revealed at lunch when we were told to peel them like bananas to find them full of rice.  There was also some barbecued pork to go with the cucumber and tomato we had all been given this morning and Vu handed round a spicy mixture of lemon grass and chilli to sprinkle on the rice.  What a fantastic meal! I have to say that the food we have eaten so far both in Cambodia and Vietnam has been excellent. After lunch we walked for about another hour – it was a bit of a trudge as the terrain was unchanging, but there was some cloud cover so we were not in full sun which was good.  At around 3pm we reached a river – a place to cool off, at last.  However, Vu said the campsite was only 10 minutes walk away so we continued on, put the tents up and then walked back to the river to play.  It was a strange structure – a bit like a weir but without a stopper, so we allowed the group to sit on the concrete section where the water flowed over to cool off, but they couldn’t actually swim in the river itself.

It was perfect just sitting under the flow of the water, it pounded on our shoulders and acted like a massage and we stayed there relaxing for about an hour before heading back to camp. Changed out of wet clothes, rigged up washing lines, dug toilet and then time for dinner. Another feast – herb omelette,, chicken, beef, green beans, and tangerines to finish.  The fruit here really is fantastic.  Most of our meals in Cambodia at the Project finished with pineapple – the best we have ever tasted, so fresh and juicy.  The meal was delicious and we were amazed at what the rangers managed to produce on an open fire.  There was far more than we could manage to eat and we felt really bad at leaving good food but as my aunty used to say we had an ample sufficiency of an appetising delicacy!

Back to the campsite for a camp fire  meeting – put the men to work at doing what they do best ( well what they like doing best, anyway!) We have continued to have debriefs as often as we can and ask the team to say something they have enjoyed about the day, something that has not been so good (although we try to get them to think about things that we have some control over, so that we can improve.  So, for example, they might not like the weather but there is nothing we can do about that) and something that they learned.  I have been pleased that the group seem confident in each other’s company that they can be honest about their feelings when we have these debriefs.  One of the girls has been quite quiet today and she said that she was struggling a bit with home sickness.  I also think the trek is the part of the expedition that she will find most challenging, so lots of support needed for her over the next few days. A few of the girls realised that they had packed too much and have very heavy packs!  Howie also commented that maybe he should have been more pro-active about teaching them what to pack and what not to!  We have appointed a new leader – this is something that Howie does every day or every other day.  It seems to be working well.  Although the team is divided into groups to organise transport, accommodation etc there needs to be someone who we can liaise with and who can communicate with all the groups and pass around information.  Sometimes they need to organise the whole team to do something or make a phone call to the trekking company or the in-country agent, or simply motivate the group.  So far they have all risen to the challenge.

So, 8.30pm and I am sitting in my tent with the embers of the fire outside.  The groups are all in their tents, talking, playing cards, writing their journals or sleeping.  Think I will have a brief wander around and check in with them before reading my book.  The ground is a bit hard so not sure how good a night I will have….