A hike always cheers us up. Something about trudging up and down a mountain, gives a sense of accomplishment and of time well spent. After a few days of settling into Dalat, we set off on a hike to Tuyem Lake. Linh, our  wiry North Vietnamese guide from Phat Tires picked us up, early in the morning speaking excellent English. In fact he had gone to college to become an English teacher but life had thrown some surprises and here has was taking us on a hike . We usually love doing our own independent hikes, but we were immensely thankful that we went with Linh. There was no way we would have come out the right side of the jungle without the seemingly waterproof Linh!

There was a light drizzle as we started off from an unmarked gate along a concrete paved path through pine trees. A wizened gatekeeper, needed a bit of convincing and possibly a few thousand Dongs ( which Linh handled very gracefully) to let us through. It sounds like a lot of money but this would most probably buy the man a coffee thats all. Till the end of the concrete pathway and the pine forest it was a walk in the park but we were about to enter the jungle soon. This was a jungle with character. It liked being wet and slippery and full of undergrowth and a haunt for leeches. Linh trudged with no rain cover or shoes (you could spot a leech faster and remove it wearing just slippers). He explained how it used to perpetually rain in Dalat from morning till night just a few years ago.

In the pines, the drizzle turned heavy and we covered up little Arjun in his hiking carrier, with a transparent rain cover. Dhanya put on her poncho and I was wearing my newly acquired jacket from the night market, which turned out to have all the water repellant attributes of a sponge !

The path narrowed and the pine woods gave way to the jungle with thick lush creepers and wet dripping trees. The trail was now just gooey mud and Linh had to bushwhack through the undergrowth. Arjun was edgy with the rain and not being able to see much (with the rain cover, a thin plastic rain coat that we purchased the night before in the market) and we sang songs about broken pickup trucks(Caspar baby pants!) to ward off a complete meltdown. He is after all three years old. I would say he was an awesome sport for his age.

Rivulets cut through the path and we walked gingerly on mossy logs. At a particularly deep crossing, wading through the stream was our only option. We took off our shoes, and marched on . I (Satya) am paranoid about leeches and if there is a leech around, my ankles never fail to bait them. Must be my sweet blood. I was still scratching the leech bites from Coorg (if you are in India you must go here!) in April and frantically kept checking my feet, to see if anyone had hitched a bloody ride.

The jungle was dark and wet. We clambered down some steep sections, using roots and creepers we could grab hold of. A couple of times, Linh had to backtrack and bushwhack a new path. I don’t think too many hikers take to this trail in the rains.

We quizzed Linh further and used him like an encyclopedia for all our doubts of all things Vietnamese. He told us about the myriad Vietnamese dialects and how a mild deflection in tone could change the meaning completely. His name for example was pronounced LingH.

After a few hours of being wet and tired, we came out of the jungle and onto the shores of the vast Tuyem Lake. Arjun pointed out a “bad snail” on his arm which turned out to be a leech and we rubbed some saliva (as expounded by Linh and very effective) to pull it off. By then it was the end of our hike.

Linh had arranged for a long boat to pick us up and we hopped on. Reaching the other end of the lake, we celebrated with some good old Banh-mi, assembled in situ by Linh. A day well spent.