Vietnam - Laos Border Part II

My team got to A Luoi and we spent the night at Do Thanh Hotel.  The hotel was new and clean, and a step up from the guest houses I have stayed in the area in the past. 

On Monday morning we took off early for the vehicle dismount point, rucked up and took off.  We walked for over three and a half hours before we had to turn around. We were within an hour from the border site and most of the hard part was done, but we reached a point where, if there had been a serious injury, we could not have gotten the victim out with the equipment we had.  With no signal on our satellite phone and no way to get to an area to cut a helicopter landing zone, it was just impossible to mitigate the dangers.

It took just as long to work our way back to the vehicles.  Even with a shortened hike, we walked a total of 14 kilometers over some pretty intense terrain.  We spent a good portion of our hike walking in a streambed. The streambed was covered with slick limestone and cannonball sized rocks that were extremely hard to navigate through.  To me, the stream bed was far worse than the mountain trails. With no less than forty pounds in gear per person on the U.S. side, it was extremely difficult to stay upright because we couldn't get any traction on the wet rocks. I fell no less than 10 times and I didn't have a monopoly on falling. Watching the burden-free Vietnamese lithely jumping from rock to rock, it was hard to keep our frustration in check. 


One of the many obstacles on our way to the site

Taking a quick break at one of the waterfalls

Skirting the side of a karst

Taking a break along the streambed

I guess I found our limit that day.  But, I feel better knowing it was a safety limit and not a physical limit.  I find it extremely hard to prepare for these missions physicallly because I live in Hanoi where there are no hills.  I did decide, however, that I need to change up my physical fitness routine adding more endurance leg work.

We were lucky in some aspects of our hike. The weather remained cool, but it didn't rain. And, I only got hit by one leech.