Today was just as foggy as yesterday at Sapa and we were not sorry to leave and get down below the cloud. Today we headed to Bac Ha, about a two hour drive away, to see the Sunday market to which all the "Flower Hmong" hill tribe people come on a Sunday. It was very colourful and the people could not have been more different from yesterday - they were in town to do their Sunday shopping and they couldn't give a damn about tourists. If you stood in the way taking photographs you got barged aside. A much better experience than yesterday at Sapa. After the market we were taken to another village but we know not why. It was grotty in the extreme but at least it didn't last long. Back down the mountain and a short detour to take a boat ride on the river. Unfortunately (or not?) the river level was very low due to those nasty dam builders that had built a dam for hydroelectricity upstream and stopped all the water. Electricity du Vietnam obviously doesn't have to contend with much of an environmental lobby as they really should increase their riparian release to at least allow tourist boats free passage without scraping the bottom. It was very pleasant floating slowly down the river with our guide having to assist the boatman by punting from the bow gleefully calling out "this is fun, this is fun!" And us saying "we want a refund, you're not experienced!". We eventually stopped somewhere amongst a sand dredging operation on the bank, scrambled out and up the hill through the sand, tiptoed through a rubbish dump and through someone's back garden to emerge back to on main road where, lo and behold, our driver was waiting for us. After returning to the rail head at Lao Cai we had several hours to kill before getting on the overnight train to Hanoi so whiled away the time gawping at the border across to China, having dinner and a few drinks and updating this journal.