Tea, Great Company and a Boat Ride!

At 4am all the villagers entered the monastery to give offerings to the monks. Had we known this happens it wouldn't have been so annoying. However, to wake up to the clanging of metal plates, cutlery, very loud talking and the smell of food at 4am was just mind boggling and how some people around us slept through the whole thing I will never know!

At 6am we all went for breakfast and let's just just say there wasn't quite the spring in our step there had been on previous days. Ellia had hurt her ankle, everyone had quite a disturbed sleep and Pauline had sun stroke from the day before so had been sick all night. It wasn't a great start!

By 7:30am we were on the road again with the end in sight. Today we have about 4 hours to walk, then lunch and an hours boat ride. After about half an hour of walking Pauline decided she was too ill and jumped on a motorbike for the remaining journey to the boat.

Today's walk went through even more chilli farms, through tiny villages with more adorable children, down a steep rocky path along what would be a river in rainy season and a red gorge. I think by the time we got to the gorge we were slightly dilerious as we came up with a story about it. We decided the colour of the Gorge was due to a tourist long long ago getting too nea the edge falling in and splattering their blood and staining the soil. In addition the size and shape was due to a battle of dragons and one was defeated and fell straight into the ground making the shape of the gorge. As I said... I think the heat got to our heads!

Unfortunately this walk only had one tea stop but we powered through knowing we would get our tea at the end! After entering a final village we soon came to the end of our walking and were definitely ready for our lunch. Lunch was definitely one of my favourites. We had avocado salad, tea leaf salad, wilted watercress, peanut curry and rice with a fried egg and a celebratory beer. It was super tasty.

After a relaxing hour Pauline joined us and we jumped on our boat and this was possibly my favourite part of the whole trip. For some reason I expected a really rubbish and short trip but it was sooo nice sitting on the boat in the sun, gliding down the still deltas towards the lake and seeing all the villagers going about their day to day lives. Once we got on the lake we saw the famous one legged fishermen which was a unexpected highlight. When we arrived we were all very relaxed and up for a celebration so we went to a local restaurant for another celebratory beer.

At about 4pm we all got quite sleepy and were in dying need of a shower, it's now been 4 days since I've had one, so we all parted ways to our respective hotels.

I jumped straight into a steaming hot shower and was in absolute heaven!! So much so that I probably stayed in a bit too long and ended up using all the hot water. Will was not a happy bunny. For the first time in 3 months we put took all our clothes to a laundrette to be washed properly and then went to meet everyone for Dim Sum Dinner.

When we got back to the hotel we sat and watched Chris Tarrants show about trains in Vietnam and it brought back so many amazing memories. Thanks Ed Avern who is the Assistant Producer who contacted us and asked for some tips and then for sending it to us. A perfect end to the day.Read more