My cousin, Uju, is visiting from India, and I’ve planned a load of activities for us. But the trek on Sunday was Souvik’s inspiration. We see these hills from our window in the distance everyday – we learnt that’s the Ba Vi National Park. A 2-hour drive out of Hanoi on a hot and sunny day was quickly turned into a pleasant and refreshing drive up the hills. Turns out many locals had the same idea, and there were a number of families at Den Thuong.

No trip of ours can be complete without plenty of food, and this one was no exception – 2 types of sandwiches (tomato-cheese, cashew butter), 2 types of chips, bakarwadi, chocolate, bananas, beverages, chocolate! We started eating in the car, continued all the way to the top, and downhill too.

We had no idea where we were heading on the trail – a lot of steps going up, up, up, and a talking tree showing the way!

Uju and I got into our favourite micro-photography – there was so much to spot and admire, if you kept your eyes open, and stopped often ;-), all accompanied by a background score by the crickets (or cricket match, as Uju called it). Look at that:

And a variety of mushrooms –

On reaching the peak, we were not surprised by the mist hiding all the view, though it was great to be in the clouds:

And then we were lucky for a few moments when the mist drifted, to unveil a view of the Song Da River

Did we have fun? Ah, the picture says it all!