We woke up to coffee, tea and a breakfast of pancakes and fruit.

The family’s children and neighbouring children came to pay us a visit. We all gave the family some extra money, which will hopefully help them through the winter.

We took some photos of the surroundings before we set off, including some silly panoramic ones.

The photos below are looking back at the house where we stayed.

Shortly after we set off, we walked through a bamboo forest. The bamboo is used for houses and other structures, and the bamboo shoots are used for food. Chopsticks are made from bamboo and exported to Malaysia, China  Singapore and Europe.

As we passed out of the bamboo forest, we came across a small local. quarry.

We passed through narrow valleys inhabited by the Hmong people.

We headed up through the valley towards the hamlet of Lo Lung Xitun, past some incredible scenery. All the landscape is caused by wind and rain erosion only. There is a 1km limestone ridge all through Vietnam.

We continued on through pristine primary forest to Co Phat and then on to Nam Ngu.

We also took some group and individual photos at one of the summits.

There were also more bugs and flowers to see.

We also came across a rat snake. Originally, it was on its back, but we flipped it over.

I chatted to Nhan about illegal drugs. Although a lot of hemp is grown in Vietnam, the plant is used for weaving and indigo dye and is not smoked. However, if a person is caught in possession of 0.5kg or more of heroin then they could be sentenced to death. Vietnam is on the way to China, so drugs do come through. The same rules apply to foreigners.

On the way, we came across a Vietnamese man carrying a heavy load of 40kg, and he was just easily walking up the hill.

As we approached our new homestay, we came across a plantation of ground nuts, which some of the group tried.

We also saw crops of soya beans, some of which were drying in the sun.

We walked down into the Nung hamlet. Three different tribes live in this village – Tay, Dao and Hmong people.

Once we arrived at our homestay, we were reunited with our larger bags, so we repacked a bit before lunch. We also had WiFi, so we were all on our phones.

After lunch, we headed down the road to the river to have a welcome refreshing dip. The water was extremely cold.

We took a few beers down to the water, too.

We spent a couple of hours down at the water before the sun started to fade. On the way back to the homestay, we passed some banana trees where the locals were harvesting the banana flowers.

We had some more delicious traditional food before another early night.