Farewell Cat Ba

Today (well, yesterday since we have been slow to update!) we had an adventurous morning. We rented out a moped to scoot up into the mountains to butterfly valley for some climbing.

-Butterfly Valley

The scootering was fortunately without drama and although the roads in Vietnam are chaos they are actually fairly low speed chaos! 

- Note the protective gloves and trousers.

Upon arrival we jumped on a warm up route which we promptly polished off, we then made the mistake of trying a 6b (having foolishly never tried a 6a). This resulted in attempts by both of us to get to the top, with me making an initial surge before Sophie getting over the crux near the top. The issue being that if you don't get to the top you have to abandon gear. 

Sophie managed to get one bolt from the top before coming down (without removing as much gear as possible) to give me a go, whereupon I promptly failed to climb the bottom of the route (even though I had earlier!!!)

- Our nemesis!

This meant Sophie had to climb again, which she did and managed to secure her highpoint, meaning we only lost the bare minimum! A great effort by Sophie and we have learnt our lesson about trying hard stuff without a friend to save our gear! However it was a good experience and the climbing was fun if a little above our grade.

After a bit of madness involving a 4PM bus arriving at 3:30PM while we were still waiting for lunch, we were on our way back to Hanoi. We had a walk about town, got another Bami Bread (with the tiny chairs), bought a North Fake bag as our day pack has died and headed home to finish our audio drama of The Murder on the Orient Express, exciting stuff!