Counting the days...

Nearly a whole year away, but already I'm getting butterflies!

October 2009 - well October 3rd, 2009 to be precise - is when I say au revoir to my family, friends and my two beloved terriers to fly halfway across the world for a 10-day trekking challenge through the glorious limestone landscape of North Vietnam.

Now being a Sagittarian you'd think I'd be ready for anything; a free spirit fearing nothing and no one. So, so wrong! For a start, I detest flying. Once I got so wound up about catching the right flight that I actually found myself on a 'plane bound for Malta (this was before all the ultra tight airport security) before the previous passengers had disembarked. I realised my mistake when they began shaking my hand and congratulating me on a great flight.

Worry number two - I don't sleep well in a strange bed. Now that might not have bothered me in my early twenties as my older sister takes great delight in telling people, but it's a different matter altogether now. I love my bed and I bet you feel exactly the same about yours. Just admit it...there's nothing better on a cold winter's night than throwing on the old BHS jim-jams - you know the cute candy-striped ones you sometimes catch your neighbours wearing to the corner shop - and curling up with a good book and a cup of Tetley. You just sink, carefree into that cosy, familiar dip-in-the mattress that embraces you like an old friend.

Concern number three - I'm not too great at camping. Actually the one and only time I ventured into a tent I was five years old and I had an accident in my sleeping bag because it was so cold. No, actually it was freezing as I recall and the rest of the family members carried on sleeping soundly, oblivious to my misery and the chattering of my teeth and my desperate attempts to escape my sodden bed. It was a long and lonely night and one I promised never to repeat.

However, it wasn't until I'd posted my application form and I'd sat down to study the trek itinerary in detail that I spotted the dreaded tent word. It went something like..."We pass by Seomity village of the Black Hmong minority before we arrive at our campsite, which is ideally located nearby a river just outside the village. While our tents are put up, we can rest our legs and take in these stunning surroundings." What??!!

It's for a really good cause, an inner voice keeps telling me. We - my fellow trekkers and I - are taking the challenge to raise much-needed funds for the beautiful moon bears of Asia. Thousands of these beautiful, intelligent animals continue to live a torturous existence, incarcerated in coffin-shaped cages on barbaric bear bile farms across China and Vietnam. The bile is used in traditional Chinese medicine, even though bear bile can easily and cheaply be replaced with herbs today. The Animals Asia Foundation is working tirelessly to rescue as many of these sad, desperate creatures as possible.
The images continue to haunt me, so my brief period of discomfort under the stars is really of very little consequence in the grand scale of things.

And this is what I told myself again last night as I settled down to read. My husband's workmate Andy, on hearing of my forthcoming adventure, kindly lent me a book about Vietnam. I curled up under the covers and prepared to fill my mind with romantic images of lovely rice paddy terraces, of breathtaking sunsets and fascinating wildlife. It just so happened that the book fell open at a random page entitled 'Health.'

It began: 'Vietnam's health problems read like a dictionary of tropical medicine.' Fair enough - I'll be sure to get my jabs.

Turning the page... 'Unfortunately, mosquitoes aren't the only things that bite. Bed bugs, fleas, lice or scabies can be picked up from dirty bedclothes ....

Turn the page and there's a cheerful reference to leeches. And the good news is that while leeches are more common than venomous snake bites where I'm going, it's the worms I really have to worry about. These cheeky little devils can enter..... - well I'll come back to them another day.

Suffice to say, I spent most of today surfing the net for suitable body armour, starting with mosquito nets - preferably the dual-purpose kind that I can also wear when walking in the hills so that every inch of me is covered. Not sure if it's been invented yet, but it could be one for Dragon's Den in the future. The joke is, if you're a man and you want to avoid being bitten, you simply take a woman with you as these critters are rather partial to the fairer sex. Up to now, it's only women in our group so they're going to have a field day!

My text task is to track down a portable loo small enough to fit into my backpack. At my age you have to think of everything....