Luckily this morning was quite an easy one, made much harder by the night before. Strangely enough I wasn't at the top of my game but I followed the crowd back to the house where we had been drinking the night before for breakfast. It was much more subdued and luckily rice wine wasn't even mentioned. After some good food we were taken on a very hot walk around the village. This gave me a chance to sweat pure rice wine and also to remind us just how hot our walking the following day could be. After literally seeing the root of my current pain, rice fields at very improbable angles, we headed back to the church to pack up for moving on. Sepingey was to be our mountain guide for the following day and I'm sure I heard him tell someone to not think about the mountain, hard to do when it dominates the sky line above the village!
Back in the 4x4's we drove to the national park headquarters along bumpy roads, some of which would have been perfect terrain for long distance mountain biking. We were shown to our rooms, the Hill top terrace, which were much nicer than anything I normally book - perhaps we are paying too much for the tour. With light rain falling we opted for a relaxing afternoon and moved our sofa onto the balcony to better admire the view of the jungle all around. An initial hunt round the room turned up tea bags but no kettle which should have been followed up with a more thorough search but this was left until much later. Still we eventually were properly British with a cuppa in hand which was better than Steve who never struck water heating gold despite the coffee in his backpack waiting to give him the caffeine boost to keep his eyes open. In the evening we all met up for food at the nearest restaurant, which did little to dim the view that we must have paid too much; it was excellent. With jet lag combining with the hangover after effects we headed back to our rooms early, with some trepidation for the long climb we had set for ourselves the next day.