Not to spoil our run of pre-dawn arisals the conductor gave us a cheery good morning knock at 05:30 half an hour before arriving at Lao Cai which is the stop just 3 km before the Chinese border. We definitely would not have wanted to sleep in this morning and end up in China. We had just enough time for a coffee and croissant before the train pulled in and we were met by our guide for the two days and driven up the mountain to Sapa. Sapa is in the next valley over to Son La where we spent an all expenses paid six weeks at SMEC's Son La resort back in 2007. Tourists come to Sapa to see the hill tribe minority people. At this time of year (winter) the weather is not good (foggy today) so you don't see a lot else. We did a little "trek" out through some villages and I have to say it was pretty horrible. On the one hand it is tourists coming to see the local people "living in squalor" and on the other it is the local people very persistently hawking souvenirs and trinkets. As you walk along you collect a crowd that follow you and will just not give up. We asked our guide to tell people to please not follow us as we did not want to buy anything but some still clung on and followed us for kilometres. Of course, when we got to the end they got grumpy because we didn't buy anything. They are pretty much "in your face" type of persistent and I assume it is at its worst at this time of the year because it is winter and there is no work being done in the fields. As it was wet underfoot, cloudy and we were not enjoying the "experience" we decided on the shorter walk and returned to the town for lunch. We managed to escape being hassled in the town by other persistent ladies though other tourists were not so fortunate. The night on the train and the early rise caught up with us and we snoozed in the afternoon.