Bun Ho

Trekking in the North of Vietnam is quite a laugh; we went with a reputable tour operator, which meant that we didn’t get offered any opium, and we shared the 3 day trip with two Dutch lesbians from McKinsey. I haven’t been around anyone who introduces themselves as a consultant, let alone a principle in quite some time, so hearing phrases like ‘out of the box’ when staying in a bamboo shack was twice as unusual as it would otherwise be.

Bun Ho turned out not to be an Alien Sex Fiend tribute village, but rather the home of one of Vietnam’s 54 minority people. Meaning literally ‘water village’ it was at the conflence of two rivers, and hiking there in the rainy season meant that we got to walk through and under many clouds. The path we were using soon turned into a third river, making it quite entertaining to walk down. There were a few styles of descent from our hikers. One was to use your boots as skis and try to turn every now and again by planting a bamboo walking pole on a mud mogul. Another was to try to step down slowly, from one piece of slippery mud to another, leaning heavily on the bamboo pole. A variation of the first was to punt yourself along, feet pointing straight downward, gathering speed all the time by pushing off left and right. But my personal favourite was the out of control spastic ‘Run Forrest, run.’ This was accompanied by that just out of control feeling, and relied on there being a flat rock to leap onto to arrest your high speed. While all of this was going on, seven stone locals would run past us, up the slope, wearing plastic sandals, and an amused expression. They found it entertaining to see our four styles of mud navigation, as they bounded effortlessly along.