~ SRGCE Lao Cai - Memories Unerased: Chapter 4 - Facing Death in Its Face ~

Mount Fansipan, That's what we've been training for.

Yeah, I know this picture isn't Mt Fansipan, but it'll do for now...

That treacherous monster that we all have to face and overcome. Throughout the training sessions I've always made myself carry more than what is required - 10kg when I was only needed to bring in 5kg, 15kg when they were only carrying 7 to 8kg of stuff for a 24km hike from MacRitchie Reservoir to Bukit Timah Hill. It was tough, it was endurance. It was sweat, it was blood. It was despair, and it was determination.

Now, which dumbass would carry 15kg for a 24km hike? The same guy who needed extra training to make it through the mountains with easy. Even then, it wasn't easy for me down at Mt Fansipan.

Sapa Town, Lao Cai, Vietnam.

Sapa Town, in the distance, with all that countryside view. Beautiful sight.

We made it to Sapa Town via a night train from Hanoi to Lao Cai, and the bunks were nicely done up for us (expected this kind of good service anyway). The only problem with those bunks was that it was too damned crammed for 4 backpacks and luggage bags. Even so, it was fun sleeping in that bunk with 3 others, namely Joel, Feng and Jeremy in the same bunk, one bed each (You think? I'm damned straight, in case you're wondering.).

Anyways, we then had breakfast at Sapa. Tania - keep quiet when reading this! I did cause quite a ruckus in the cafe because I ordered a croissant, which apparently someone told me the wrong information that it was a side order, and a breakfast set. As a result, I had to cancel the previous order because I couldn't manage the food and the others already ordered theirs. Sorry guys!

Mirjam and Mr Chong couldn't join us for the climb. I thought, "What the...? Our leader is out even before going up Mt Fansipan!" Turned out that she had a sore throat and was running a fever at the same time - why didn't anyone ask for medicine? (I had paracetamol and Dequadin lozenges with me, just in case.)

I couldn't get a proper shot of Heaven Gate, the start of our hike up there, so well... Make do with this.

Bloody cold weather, so there!

In any case, we reached Heaven Gate, and we went, 9.5kg on my bag when the rest of them carred about 7-8kg up the mountains. It was heavy because I was carrying rations - Tiger energy biscuits, Lexus crackers, McVities Digestive Biscuits and Campbell soup powder mix. In addition, I still had mosquito coils with me, which didn't prove to be actually practical, given the bloody cold weather.

Fansipan Warriors. From left to right: Joel, Jay, Linus, Feng

Off to conquer Mt Fansipan - the end justifies the means!

Oh yeah, we see them now. And so, we went off for the hike. The first night was bloody freezing - I lost my heat packs inside my sleeping bag for quite a couple of times halfway through my sleep. It got so bad that many of us couldn't really sleep down there - at most you get only 2-3 hours of uninterrupted sleep before the wind starts blowing against the tent and makes you freeze.

The food was nice, and they served hot noodle soup every lunch and breakfast. It's good food, considering that I was expecting only bread and water up the mountain trek, and the weather conditions made noodle soup ideal. Heck, they even have proper rice meals during dinner which added on to my delight - I do eat quite a lot, but in such a situation I ate much less than normally.

The second day came, and we continued up our hike up the Fansipan summit. Halfway through, Ping See wasn't feeling well - we were told later that it was altitude sickness. One casualty. Despite that, we reached the summit, after lots of hard effort and winds blowing right into our faces. Victory for all! And that was when the trouble started. Descent was worst than the ascending part. Fonteyn hurt her old injury, and couldn't proceed on anymore, so the porters carried her down to base camp. Another casualty. I almost became the next casualty - I got myself hammered 2 times on the same knee by the rocks, and it sure was numbing to my right leg.

"Bloody hell, we've reached the friggin' summit, finally!"

I didn't care, I moved on. And we reached the summit. Ah finally, the end justifies the means. All that training just to reach the summit. It was kinda disappointing up there at the summit though - the entire area was cloudy and misty so you couldn't see the bottom. Might as well it remained that way though, since I'm altophobic.

Cheers to everyone - we've achieved what we came here for!

Signs of severe fatigue - push on, Joel!

And the trouble came again. Mrs Tan became our next casualty due to a ankle sprain - and nobody actually spotted! We were too busy trying to follow the rest back to base camp for fear of being left behind. In the end, after all that rat race, only Shan Ying, Jeremy and I was left at the 2200m campsite...

...while the rest had already continued on to the 2100m campsite. What the hell...? There wasn't anyone familiar in sight by the time we reached there. Where the hell was everyone else?

I touched my water bottle, thank God it was there. But where the hell were they? Cell phone - I swiped it outta my pocket. No signal. Checked the surroundings to hear for people. Nobody around, except for some Vietnamese at the camp site, which clearly wasn't ours - there wasn't anyone pitching any tents. How were we gonna get help?

I used my whistle. It got the nearby Vietnamese's attention. We asked for directions, and he pointed towards a road up ahead. But how were we supposed to be sure that was the correct path? Jeremy put his bag down for us to look after, while he followed down that trail to see whether what he said was true. Shan Ying and I stayed behind, in case there were more of us right behind trying to look for us.

A while passed, and I didn't feel safe. I blew it again. This time, more of them came up towards us, and they beckoned us to go forward, which I mistook to be asking us to call Jeremy back there. In the end, we moved together with them as a group.

"Base camp at where?" a female trekker who was with us, asked the two other accompanying trekkers. "About half an hour to 2 hours' walk to base camp." It was getting dark, and the people seemed to resemble like bandits more and more. What if they led us to somewhere off the beaten path and rob us of our belongings?

I continued walking. My bottle dropped off the strap. Clonk! It was a terrifying noise at that point in time - NO WATER! Anything but having no water, for Christ's sake! I didn't drink much water throughout the trip, and here I was facing such a situation. How are we gonna survive this?

I cannot die here. I won't die here. I mustn't die here. There's so many things waiting for me to do - I cannot afford to die there. I cannot afford to die there. I cannot afford to die there.

I kept on walking with the rest. By then fatigue had already caught up with me, and it was turning dark. I had to continue. How are the others gonna explain to our parents if we couldn't make it back there in time, if at all? I have to make it back there.

"Ah, me no like dark, sun is my friend," I heard one of the trekkers say. We had our flashlights, so it became less of a problem. Then I realised why the other trekkers also were rushing together with us - we had our lights, and that was what they needed too. Nice, people who don't know each other sharing lights to go back to their camp - or at least to ours at best. I hope their camp is nearby ours, for they didn't have their lights anymore when we reached base camp.

Most beautiful sight ever. God took me outta Death's face. My time wasn't up, yet.

It turned out that those people weren't bandits after all. Phew. And God took us back to where we were supposed to be in. And better still, some groups split and arrived at the base camp only just 5 minutes before we reached. It was rather good pacing, from 2800m to summit and down to 2100m ASL (above sea level).

Though that taught me several hard lessons as well, pretty self-explanatory:

1. Don't wait for things to happen. Pre-empt it and think much ahead.
2. No point arguing over why the situation goes awry - think of how to solve it first.
3. Teamwork is of utmost importance - especially when it involves death risk.