My trek is to enable fundraising that will support Animals Asia's work to improve the welfare of animals in Vietnam and China and maintain quality care for rescue bile bears. We are trekking through villages & jungle in North Vietnam. At night we will be staying in the homes of local hill tribes. Then we get on our way to Animals Asia's Bear Sanctuary in Tam Dao National Park to meet the moon bears and sun bears that have been rescued from a life of torture. Animals Asia was founded in 1998 by Jill Robinson MBE after an encounter on a bear bile farm in southern China. It changed her life forever. More than 10,000 bears are kept on bile farms in China and about 1,200 in Vietnam. Most of these bears are permanently kept in cages from young cubs for up to 30 years. Many are often starved and dehydrated suffering from multiple diseases and malignant tumours. Bile is extracted on a daily basis using metal rods and other painful invasive techniques. They rarely receive veterinary treatment and medication. Some old bears are left to starve and die in their cages when they can no longer produce bile. Bear bile farms are a catalogue of barbaric abuse, cruelty and heartless severity towards the bears on an unimaginable scale. Animals Asia has rescued over 500 bears and placed them in their world class sanctuaries providing over 250 Chinese and Vietnamese people with direct employment. They have also engaged with the traditional medicine community and other users to promote herbal and synthetic alternatives to bear bile. Their Healing Without Harm campaign targeted practitioners, independent pharmacists and pharmacy chains as well as doctors, pathologists and liver specialists. It takes time but the world as well as China and Vietnam are waking up to this vile practice and awareness continues to spread.