We caught an overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Cai for our 3 day treking tour in Sapa. We shared our cabin with two Malaysian guys who were headed to China to go trekking - we hadn't realised how close we would be to China as Lao Cai is the border town! We beat the language barrier and managed to teach them how to play our versions of cards, before they told us that in their games 2 is the highest card and 3 the lowest! They must have been pretty confused but it passed the time! Slept reasonably well before being rudely awaken at 5am to transfer to a bus which would take us the rest of the way to Sapa. I think the scenery would have been great but we slept practically all the way! As soon as we had checked into our room and were planning a powernap, we were told we were leaving for a morning trek to Cat Cat village and waterfall! As we walked out of Sapa town we were shown a viewpoint to Falsipan Mountain - the highest in Vietnam - but all we could see is cloud as the mist was back. As we went further down the mountain the weather cleared a little and we bagan to see the stunning scenery. It was really hilly, steep, green and surrounded by rice paddies. It was amazing to see how they made use out of the land with rice paddy 'steps' up the side of the mountain. The recent typhoon was evident as the terrain was really muddy and slippy, but we were lucky as I think it had been much worse the preious few days. We were also lucky because it meant the waterfalls were all full and running fast. Cat Cat village seemed fairly non existant with just a few stalls trying to sell local crafts. The walk back up the mountain was pretty hard work on the legs after no exercise for 3 months but we managed to refrain from getting a motorbike lift once we got to the road! That afternoon we tried to walk to a Hmong village that our guide gave us directions to but it turned out to be more of a flower garden! The rain started up again so we headed back to the hotel to prepare for the next days 17km trek to our homestay. Unfortunately we had the same guide as the preious day (he liked to powerwalk ahead and offer as little information as possible!) but we had a good group - Dan and Kiz from Australia, Alexandra from Portugal and a Japanese guy that we're still not sure of his name! - so it was a fun couple of days. The scenery was similar to the previous day, but we went further down the valley to the more remote villages - passing through three different hilltribe areas before reaching our homestay village. We were accompanied all the way by a selection of local women - from 5 yrs old to 48, who all wanted to sell us their family's product. It was a difficult situation as the younger girls were really sweet (unlike their pushy mums!) and tried really hard so you felt you should buy something off them, but while they were walking all day with us they should have been in school, encouraging them not to go is obviously bad for their future but at the same time they needed the money!! The homestay was not exactly what we had expected as we were completely separate from the family and didn't really get to meet them which was a shame. But they cooked us some great food and plied us with rice wine - 35% taken as a shot... disgusting! The next day we continued to trek along the valley before starting the climb back out of it... Luckily we didnt have to walk all the way back to Sapa and were picked up by a minibus after lunch! The hotel let us shower when we arrived back before we caught a bus back to the train station to return to Hanoi. This time had to share with an old Japanese couple who looked really pissed off that we'd intruded on them, and then wouldn't let us shut the door to the compartment at night, so we had all the lights and noise etc from outside! Random!