Five Lakes Trail in Bach Ma National Park

After a long drive along deserted and poorly maintained roads we arrive at the visitor center. Among the greenery is a dilapidated building that mainly radiates past glory. Here we learn interesting facts and the special history of this park.

In the late 1930s, the French were impressed by the natural beauty of this area. They decided to develop this region as a tourist attraction for French settlers and wealthy Vietnamese. Luxurious villas and holiday homes were built, but now they are hauntingly abandoned. This is because, after the independence of Vietnam, the commercial exploitation of this area stopped completely. It was not until 1991 that Bach Ma became a national park. In Vietnam, this mainly means that the area is protected: hunting and deforestation are prohibited.

The visitor center is not our final station. We get back in the car and drive towards the top of Hai Vong Dai. It is a beautiful drive along a winding road that winds up the green mountain flank. We pass waterfalls and even rise above a few wisps of clouds. The white clouds provide a nice contrast with tropical green mountain sides.

Finally we stop at the Nha Hang Do Quyen Restaurant. An abandoned building that once served as a restaurant and where we 'experience' the dirtiest toilets in the world.

High time to start our hike: Ngu Ho Trail or more intelligible Five Lakes Trail. We spray ourselves with tropical mosquito repellent and put our feet in plastic bags. A necessary ritual: it is full of leeches that crawl into shoes and even squeeze through stockings! The walk soon takes us into the jungle. The surroundings are indescribably beautiful: tropical plants grow lushly along and along the path. Everywhere we see and hear water flowing. By the way, we are completely alone here.

Soon we come to the bank of a wildly swirling river with azure water. The name of the river? No idea: this area hasn't even been mapped yet! We feel like pioneers while with our hiking GPS we may be the first to register this trek. We make our way through the dense and therefore impenetrable thickets of the jungle that plunges into the river. The only passage is a narrow ledge along the steep bank above the swirling water. Here we literally and figuratively begin to feel wetness: this is not safe at all.

We often hang with the tips of our shoes on narrow, wet and mossy pieces of rock just above the river. Even our sturdy hiking shoes have a hard time here and we are constantly slipping away from the slippery stones. The only hold is the tree roots, which are sometimes so rotten that they break off. We hope this is just a small stretch of unmaintained hiking trail, bite our teeth and persevere. After all, the surroundings are beautiful and this must be the most beautiful watercourse we have ever seen.

It soon becomes clear that there is no longer a hiking trail. This is more like canyoning with rock climbing and stepping through the river. Tardy! We can't go back: we just jumped off a cliff and we'll never get back on it. So we have no choice but to persevere and follow the unpredictable course of the turbulent river. A little further on it becomes completely impossible to climb further along the rock ledges. So we have to drop ourselves into the river. We step through the swirling river and finally end up deep in the water.

We slowly and with mild to acute agony make our way through the jungle. The Five Lakes Trail logically takes us past several lakes, each connected by the river and several waterfalls. Every time we approach a waterfall, there is an urge to survive where we hoist ourselves down via (sometimes rotten) ropes. After each waterfall, the water loses its stormy character and we take a rest on a rock. Admittedly, the surroundings here are iconically beautiful. The flowing blue water, the beautiful white waterfalls, the green wild jungle, the deep nature sounds, ... This is an undiscovered paradise.

Meanwhile, it appears that the route is extra dangerous today due to the rainfall of recent days. The water level is higher than normal and the current is exceptionally strong and treacherous. We don't exactly shoot up and when the sun goes down, the venomous snakes become massively active.

In a very inelegant way we finally get to the end of the route. We arrive at a dilapidated temple with a large Buddha statue on the roof. From there a path has been built back that takes us to the main road. We take a short drive to a viewpoint with a dilapidated observation platform from the 30s. Here we enjoy a beautiful view of the mountains that rise above the clouds.