The "hike" I was talking about the other day that I was going to go on with some newcomer friends who have only been here a month or so was absolutely awful and while I felt like I over-prepared for the journey, I am seriously glad that I did.
It wasn't a "hike" at all but rather a 90% walk up hills on a street with very little in the way of shade for us the entire way.
Sure, we got a great viewpoint at the top but on the way up it became clear to me that they had done zero research about this journey and the idea for everyone that visits this place is to take a car or bike in order to get to it. We were on foot, and it was torture.
That's the city I live in below and the crazy thing is that we WALKED all the way up there and this was done exclusively on paved roads where the trees had been intentionally chopped back so that the road could be completed. This resulted in us being exposed to the mid-day sun for entire time we were on it. I brought sun cream with me but didn't apply it at first because I was expecting us to be on some sort of nature trail with trees above us. I don't always apply sun cream or suntan lotion at first when doing something outdoors because I am a sweaty guy and the cream actually makes me sweat more.
Thankfully I had brought a couple of sweat towels with me and I ended up using them as a sun cover for the most part.
The only wildlife we spotted the entire time was a herd of 4 goats that were wandering somewhere in the dead heat of day and we also briefly spotted a monkey in the distance but couldn't get a picture of them because they were too far away. This didn't really matter to me at the time because I hate monkeys. I think the only people that actually like monkeys are people that either work with them for zoo reasons or people who have never had any exposure to them.
The view is pretty nice and all but it is merely these parking areas on the side of the road where people will pull over to get a group photo and see how massive the city that they live in below actually is.
Our road was a winding one that like I said before, was almost entirely exposed to direct sunlight the entire time and was almost always at an incline that really wore you down. All of us were completely saturated with sweat in the first 90 minutes and the trip went on for a lot longer than 90 minutes.
It was supposed to be a couple of hours hike in the woods but ended up being more than 5 hours of just walking on the road. It was horrible and is something that I will never attempt again.
My friend Stava'd the trip and let me tell you this: While a 20km walk isn't that big of a deal normally, it is absolute torture when most of it is uphill in the direct sunlight, with no chance to bail out other than to turn back the way you came and suffer the way back down. We also came dangerously close to running out of water and I am quite certain that I sweat out at least as much liquid as I consumed during the journey.
Thankfully, we rounded a corner right about the time that I was getting seriously concerned about the fact that I had only about two gulps of water left and there was a small cafe at the top. We were at around 900 meters at this point and I quickly drank 2 bottles of water and got two more to take away.
There was no talk about going further into the nature area at this point because we were actually at the START of what is considered the nature attractions of the area at this point. I was exhausted and after sitting in the shade for 15 minutes or so and attempting to cool down we had the added benefit of knowing that we had another 12 km left to our journey.
At first we were pleased that it would be almost entirely downhill but now we had another problem to contend with: We are not young kids so it really started to hurt the knees with the constant impact of the decline.
Once we got back to civilization we stopped at multiple places to get more to drink and by the time I got back home I was sunburned and my feet and knees were absolutely killing me.
I was also pretty badly sunburned on the exposed parts of my body, especially my neck.
So I learned something that day: Don't trust your friends about a "hiking place" that they "discovered" but have never been to before. It was a nightmare and I am extremely glad that it is behind me. Am I happy about the 2000 calories that I burned? Well, of course. I am not very delighted about the fact that this was probably the closest I have ever come to heat exhaustion and dehydration in my entire life though.
So my advice to anyone out there that is contemplating climbing the iconic Da Nang mountain is to not do it. Rent a scooter or get a taxi up there. I really believe that really bad things could happen to people otherwise.
Totally get it. I had that once, me and home minister decided crawl over a mountain track since we missed the train, thinking might as well save a couple of dollars and the hour wait 🤣 ended up 4 hours mountain trail. Trust me, it doesn't look that big of a deal on Google maps that's why we decided to "walk" over 🤣🤣🤣 the biggest difference is, we did it during autumn at south Korea 🤣🤣🤣 and yours is in our summer.
I think I would have complained a lot less if it wasn't for the heat and sun but it was still a lot more exercise than I had planned on.
⋆ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ ғᴏʀ sᴏᴜᴛʜᴇᴀsᴛ ᴀsɪᴀɴ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴏɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ
⋆ sᴜʙsᴄʀɪʙᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀsᴇᴀɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ
⋆ ғᴏʟʟᴏᴡ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀsᴇᴀɴ ʜɪᴠᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴛʏ ᴠᴏᴛɪɴɢ ᴛʀᴀɪʟ
⋆ ᴅᴇʟᴇɢᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ʟɪɴᴋs 25 ʜᴘ⇾50 ʜᴘ⇾100 ʜᴘ⇾500 ʜᴘ⇾1,000 ʜᴘ
It could have been worse actually
yeah, we could have needed hospitalization
Of course
I thought this plan was not well thought out when you posted about it the other day as surely you get to where you are going before hiking unless this was an overnight event lol. Tell your friends I say they are nuts as this was ludicrous to think that this was a good idea.
Oh I have already let them know that I am never leaving the hike plans up to them ever again.
There were several instances where it looked evident among everyone that we were all thinking of turning back but none of us wanted to be the wimp that gave up.
Oh my gosh, that is horrible. I am sorry it turned out that way for you. I climbed a small mountain a couple of years ago and didn't realize there was so much more beyond what we saw at first. Eventually we figured it out, but half of our party couldn't complete the trip.bwe are going back this summer and I plan to be more prepared this time.
yeah that was something I noticed on this trip as well. We knew the end point was at the summit and at various points of near exhaustion I was thinking to myself "oh it can't be that much further, the peak is right there!" It's a lot further away than you think!
I can't imagine how hard it must have been. I mean you were basically spent by the time you got there. Then to think you had to walk all the way back too...
we were very fortunate that small cafe was up there. Had it not been I think we would have simply had to wait for someone to come by in a car and flag them down for help. without reloading on water I think we could have been in serious trouble.
That is scary! I am glad it worked out for you! Did the cafe seem busy? It might have been a really strategic move for them to pick that location.