Vending Machines at 3,776 m (12,388 ft)

My mystery cold/stomach based illness which I picked up in Vietnam finally disappeared last week. After around 2 weeks of inactivity I decided to get the blood pumping again. So starting on Sunday I got back into the fitness regime. Kickboxing for three consecutive days was the baptism of fire, then I followed it by climbing Mount Fuji!

We left Tokyo at 8pm, got to the highest point accessible by car (on this particular route anyway, there are about 5 ways up the mountain) at 10pm, then started climbing at 10:30pm.
Woah, woah, woah Dave I hear you cry in disbelief. 10:30pm?!?. Well yes, that is not a typo, there are only two reasons to climb Mount Fuji...

1. Because its there.
2. For the view, or specifically the view of the sunrise you can get from the top.

Basically the climb itself is not that thrilling, Fuji is a volcano so the landscape is rocky and moon-like at some points, so no animals or nice foliage to look at. The main sight in the area is the mountain itself, which you can't see when you're climbing it. So getting to the top by about 4:30am is the target for most climbers, as is the hope that the weather stays fine and there isn't low cloud. If these all come together you're rewarded with a view over the clouds and a beautiful sunrise.

Apparently it normally takes 6-8 hours to get to the top, plus a lot of people will stop for a nap or a rest in one of the many mountain huts on the way up adding to this estimated time. You can see the sunrise from any point on the hiking course and I think most people see it close to, but not actually at the top of, the mountain due to underestimating how long it will take to climb.
Due to the late start there wasn't really the luxury of stopping, so battling against the occasional dizziness of altitude sickness I sped up the mountain in a mere five and a half hours, giving me 30 minutes to find a nice spot to watch the sunrise and buy an overpriced can of coffee from the vending machine on top.

After seeing the sunrise there's little else to do except buy overpriced food, have a quick nap, look at the crater, send a postcard from the post office at the top of the mountain....then....climb down again! It's a bit faster but even so, after climbing all through the night the last thing you want to do is spend another 3 hours scrambling back down the mountain.

As per usual, there are more photos if you click the title of this post.

Back from Nam

I'm back from Nam and i've got the thousand yard stare, still having flashbacks too... they're everywhere.... coming out of the trees.... agghhhhhh!

Not really. You see because there isn't a war in Vietnam anymore, I'm just trivialising a major conflict of the 20th Century that took millions of lives.Anyway, it's nicer than the 70's now, and I had a great time there.

I flew into Hanoi and stayed there for two nights, took a day trip to Halong bay, travelled by bus down to Hue, a day trip to the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), then down to Hoi An before flying back to Tokyo via Hanoi airport again. Went on a motorbike a few times on the day trips (sorry mum!) which was fun, I hired a driver too as I didn't fancy negotiating Vietnamese traffic.

People are much more outgoing than in Japan so kids in the street would stare a little bit then ask where you were from or what your name was. Normally the conversation stopped at that though, maybe they need more English teachers! In shops the saleswomen had similar questions before pointing out some wares and instructing me 'you buy, you buy'. In fact, half the people I met were really nice and genuinely interested in someone from another country and the other half saw a walking ATM and tried to get as much money out of me as possible.

Officially the currency is the Dong (hehe, that sounds funny), but they also take American dollars. If I changed about £30 I instantly became a millionaire as £1 = about 35000 Dong. But it got a little confusing changing all the prices in my mind between pounds, yen, dollars and dong. Not that it mattered that much, everything was ridiculously cheap and I sometimes felt bad haggling over the equivalent of 50p, but it was more the principle that I was being charged more as a foreigner. In fact I'd only spent about half my money by the end of the week so I got 5 shirts and a suit tailor made in Hoi An (they have about 500 different tailor shops so lots to choose from!).

Obviously I also got a bit sick from street food, fruit, and forgetting that I shouldn't have ice in drinks. Nothing too bad and it didn't stop me from enjoying myself. Got it checked when I came home to make sure it wasn't Malaria, the Hepatitis alphabet, Dengue fever or some parasite living in my stomach (didn't get any vaccinations before I went). The Japanese doctor I saw chatted to me for 5 minutes, took my temperature, told me it was a cold then charged me about £17....hmmm....easy money....nice job.

See more photos by clicking on the title of this post.