Our next attempt at hiking in Vietnam was with a French guide at Bach Ma National Park.

The park was beautiful and it was good to spend some time in the mountains and woods, but the guide was a bit peculiar.

He was so cautious it was hard to take him serious.

We had just finished coming down some rocks on a rope line and here he is giving the family reviews of what they did right and what they did wrong. I tried hanging back to take pictures and avoid some of the hang wringing but that upset him as well and we couldn't continue until everyone had been lectured on how properly to place one foot in front of the other.

Before realizing how cautious he was, he gave us a choice between a technical route and an easy route. Of course we said we wanted to go the technical route. Shortly after we passed this spot I asked, with genuine curiosity, when we were we going to get to the technical bit. I was told that coming down the rocks on the rope lines had been the technical spot.