All Summer Long

“There are two options,” says the Vietnamese Jack Black, who must have materialised at some point during the breakfast and seems to be buried in three coats. “The first option is that we take a small path up the mountain to the bamboo forest.” He laughs, points his fingers at our trainers, and then starts kicking the air to show us his wellies. “The second option is that we take the road. You know option, yeah? Two option. Small path or the road.” Here we go again with the small path; we all know where this leads. There are around twelve us in the group and the vote, despite Jack Black’s premonition that the path will be slippery, is unanimous. We’ll be taking the path up the mountain with shoes that are entirely devoid of grip. But it’ll be alright, won’t it?

Within seconds we’re sliding in mud at an impossible angle through the space between two buffaloes. Nicola’s holding the hand of a small child from the village who she’s nominated as her guardian by the sheer chance of almost wiping her out. I’m desperately grasping at the remains of a wire fence in an attempt to hoist myself up. This is supposed to be a walk, but I don’t think either of us are using our legs at all. I’m dragging them behind me using this dilapidated fence and Nicola’s being spirited up by the will of the child. If either of these things were to disappear, then we’d simply be sliding backwards.

And it isn’t just us. The whole group came unprepared, most of them expecting to dance up the mountain in pumps. All but one, an Austrian mountaineer, who has a supernatural ability to stay stood up on a slide that for everyone else could only be scaled with a rope and toboggan.

The quality of the path only gets worse. To top it off, the mist today is like a thick blanket over everything, and we can’t see a blind thing. I’m spending most of the hike looking down, walking in the footsteps of those in front of me, the imprints of sneakers, sandals, slippers. Somewhere in the distance I hear a faint giggle and look ahead through the fog to find Nicola spun, fallen on her backside, lying spread-eagled in the mud.

In fact, everyone is dripping with mud. Everyone except Jack Black and the Austrian. Nicola, her backside completely brown, looks like some kind of small bear. The shapes at the end of her legs, indistinct and wet, could no longer be called shoes. Some of the group luxuriate in the freedom of being so dirty. Others are more austere, like the guy who wants to remove every iota of dirt as soon as it sticks to him to preserve the sheen of his PVC coat. Everywhere I look, grown men are supported at either side; having been liberated of their dignity, they’re being chaperoned over the mountain by children.

The dad from the Austrian family has produced a military grade knife and he’s using it to slice through a pole of bamboo. This will be our walking stick for the remainder of the walk. If Nicola’s balance was questionable beforehand, in the forest she’s like a deer on ice. Stabbing the mud with our pole, we eventually reach a waterfall, and its crystal waters are a massive payoff for our climb.

But it’s not quite over yet, and the final slide is the steepest. At one point Nicola brings the kid down as well, and the two of them are saved only by the iron grip of an ancestor of the village, impossibly old and with more rings on her face than an ancient tree. At the base of the mountain the girl produces jewellery, bags and purses from the wicker basket on her back to sell to us. Of course we oblige as we wouldn’t have made it round without her and we notice the whole group doing the same, handing over money to the children as payment for keeping us upright in short bursts.

The minivan back to Sa Pa pulls over at a car park where a coven of girls jump dangerously on a cliff edge between two ropes. They threaten to descend on the bus while we’re stuck there with no idea what’s going on. As it turns out we’re waiting for another group of mud people who drip with us back until we reach town.

Two bus rides later and we arrive at the Calypso, having endured an interminable five hours of insane driving, during which time my head almost constantly hit the roof of the minibus. We limp into the lobby, carrying a dirty plastic bag with our destroyed shoes. The receptionist takes one look at us and says, “You have a simple luggage.”