The Rolling Stone

Today tested both my physical and psychological resilience with a hike to the top of a mountain and an open chairlift all the way down with no seatbelt. The views were fantastic and no doubt worth the physio and psychological therapy I will now require.

The day started easily enough with a hour-long train ride out to Takeo Mountain. This was one of the few days I had no input in planning and so it meant I could mentally relax and let Hayley do the navigation of public transport. It also means that I can hold her entirely responsible for the rest of the day.

The walk we embarked on was described by the guide book as “easy to moderate” – an egregious lie that will shortly be the subject of legal action. The first sign of trouble was how steep the path was to begin with.

However I was lulled into a sense of calm by the pretty shrines, statues, and sacred stones that dotted the side of the path.

There seemed to be hundreds of them and I was enchanted for I don’t know how long before waking up to the fact that I was out of breath, drenched in sweat, heart pounding, and my calves were on fire 🔥.

It was only then that I realised that the neat little signs that had been telling me about local flora and fauna had also been showing me the stages of the walk and I was now on stage 6… out of 14!!

The revelation that I was less than half-way up, but more than half-way dead led me to start plotting a pretend medical emergency in order to be airlifted out. Not long after I started to think that I may not need to pretend.

Fortunately after stage 8 the walk levels out and I was able to avoid any embarrassing collapses. And once I’d stopped puffing like a steam train I had to admit the view was lovely.

Hayley had promised we could take a cable car ride back down. Not all the way down as it turns out because the top station for the cable cars was at this point, along with a small shop and some food stalls. We took a brief break and did some shopping and I then noticed that there was both a cable car and a chairlift. Foolishly I pointed this out, thinking that no sane person could possibly prefer a terrifying open air ride down a mountain to the safety of an enclosed cable car.

“Chairlift!” both my children exclaimed and I mentally wrote them out of my will.

I was able to put off this terrifying prospect as we pushed on further towards the main temple and the summit. More lovely stones and statues.

We finally made it to the main temple, which was proceeded by a list of all those who had died on this walk.

Hayley said she thought this was a list of those who had made donations to the temple, but I wasn’t convinced.

The temple itself was distributed across three levels and involved climbing approximately 200,000 steps.

But I have to admit it was almost worth it.

With a final burst of effort that nearly did me in completely we pushed on to the summit.

There the view was totally unspectacular.

Now it was time for the dreaded descent. I tried one last time to persuade my family of the benefits of a safely enclosed cable car, but to no avail. My children insisted on the chair lift, the wretches. At least, I consoled myself, it will no doubt have a safety bar or seatbelts. Imagine my horror when I saw they were just open seats!!

Despite this I gathered my courage and got on a seat with Xavier. My partner was with Felix in the seat ahead and cruelly documented my distress.

Notice the grimace of fear, the death grip on both the seat side rail and on Xavier’s hand. This, ladies and gentlemen, is terror given physical form!

Xavier was at least kind to me, kicking his legs in order to give the seat a soothing swing. It’s entirely due to my lack of moral character that I didn’t appreciate this at the time.

We finally touched down on solid earth and I spend the train ride back lying across several seats with a damp cloth over my face to recover, and back at the hotel I immediately took to my bed thanking every god and spirit that the day was done.

(In case it’s not totally clear, there has been substantial poetic licence taken in this post, with massive exaggerations for (hopefully) humorous effect. However, the camera doesn’t lie and you can see from the photos what an amazing experience we had. Just about the only true part of the text is that the whole thing was planned by Hayley and so she is responsible for the entire wonderful day.)