Indiana Goddard Part II: The Canyon of Doom

It's the dry season. In the three weeks that we've been in Vietnam, it's only rained twice.

But, in the words of our own guide, Kanh, the river was the highest and fastest that he's ever seen, even in the wet season. And we were about to abseil off cliffs into the rapids. Great idea, Mark. The water authorities had decided to open a dam somewhere up river for repairs and the river had been raging for the last couple of weeks.

The start was easy enough with a practice abseil down a slope. 20m down the path and it was the real thing, although pretty easy and we zoomed down.

It should have been a 20 minute walk to the next cliff with a simple wade across the river. After nearly getting swept to Saigon our guide decided to try and find a different route further along. We ended up tying a rope across the river and attaching ourselves to it by carabiner so we could haul ourselves across.

From there, it just got crazier. Normal paths were flooded so we threw ourselves into the rapids, got carried along by the current for 30 seconds and then frantically paddled to the shore; fought through overgrown jungle until the normal paths could be used; walked across fallen tree trunks; all with a bit of rock climbing thrown in for good measure.

The next abseil was simple but ended in the river. Stray too far from the cliff edge and the current would take you, so we gingerly edged along until we could wade out.

A 7m jump into the rapids was followed by abseiling down a waterfall. Kate did the jump, but opted out of the waterfall abseil after Mark tried it first and made a bit of a hash of it. The water pounds your legs and your waist, the rock is deadly slippery and it gets more and more intense until suddenly the water is flowing over your head and you can finish the abseil with relative ease.

The waterslide involved a treacherous walk into the open river where our guide held us by the scruff of our lifejackets and then let go! We were sucked along by the rapids, down a little waterfall and then thrown underwater to safely emerge in a slightly calmer pool. Calmer meaning we could just about swim to a rock for safety before throwing ourselves parallel to the current to grab onto the safety rope and be hauled to dry land!

The final adventure is known as the washing machine. Absolute madness. You abseil down 10m or so and then let go into a raging waterfall, only to get spat out after a few submerged seconds. Mark's sandal came off in the torrent but he reached down to grab it, banging his head in the process [don't worry Mum & Dad, I'm okay!]. The safety rope came in handy as there was no way we could swim out of the current before it took us down another waterfall. With the rope stretched taut, we swam to a rock in the middle of the pool and from there gingerly made it to the river bank. Kate decided to become the official photographer and stay on dry land!

Our guides were superb...part of Phat Tire Ventures if anyone is in this part of the world...highly recommended! Even though it was crazy everything was done really professionally and they really looked after us.