We survived the night bus! Surprisingly, I actually had a decent amount of sleep, Matt told me that I had fallen asleep before the bus had even left, I was very exhausted! I felt much better this morning, although still a little fragile. Apparently, we had arrived in Sapa at 4am, but the bus driver let us sleep on the bus until 6am which was good. We weren't meeting our walking tour guide, Mao, until 7am so we sat in a little coffee shop until then.

It was actually Mao's sister that met us as Mao was busy. She took us for breakfast at the local market while we waited for the rest of our group to arrive. I didn't feel up to eating just yet but we had a 15km hike today so I forced down a dry soft baguette which actually made me feel a bit better!

It was a beautiful crisp morning when we finally set off. There were 8 of us in our group and everyone was very friendly. We clicked instantly with a guy called Trevor from Texas and a couple, James from California and Pauline his girlfriend from France. We chatted pretty much the whole first 7km to our lunch stop. We were so lucky with the weather as Sapa is usually foggy and wet this time of year but it was clear beautiful sunshine so we could see for miles. The views were stunning!

After a lovely long lunch of vegetable fried noodles while we waited for two new people to join our group, we set off for the final 7km hike to the village homestay. The views of all the incredible mountains and rice paddy fields were just spectacular, we felt so lucky to have visited at such a good time!

We finally arrived at Mao's homestay. It was a large authentic wooden house right next to a waterfall where there were small children washing. We were greeted with tea and rested for a while. Trekking through those mountains had worn us all out. After a warm powerless shower, I helped the family where I could to prepare dinner. The dinner they provided was awesome, so delicious and much more than I was expecting. Matt, James and Trevor started on the beers and we all sat around getting to know each other. We finally met Mao who was just hilarious. You could tell she had a great sense of humour and was up for a laugh. Before we knew it, she was encouraging everyone to drink shots of her 'happy water', aka. Rice wine. I managed to get myself out of it as my stomach still wasn't 100%, but everyone else was pretty much forced to drink. An hour later, and 4 litres of happy water down, the entire group except three of us were absolutely smashed! Needless to say, the night ended with one guy vomiting upstairs. This would have been ok but he vomited onto the wooden floor boards which then seeped down into Mao's bedroom below! We all panicked, frantically trying to clean everything up, but Mao laughed her head off... Mission accomplished!

With heavy heads the next morning, no one was feeling the 12km hike planned for today, except for myself and Pauline who felt right and rain! Yet again, the weather was on our side. The stunning views kept us all going for the best part of the day. We stopped again for lunch and then said our goodbyes to half of the group as we were being taken back to Sapa town for the evening. We continued our trek but everyone was struggling... especially Matthew! So we decided to head back to Sapa town.

We booked into GoSapa hostel which was on the top of a mountain, again with gorgeous views of a mountain range. That night we splash out on a nice restaurant. The meal was great and I was given complimentary mulled wine which was amazing!

After a great nights sleep, we chilled in the hostel during the morning time and then headed out for an explore of Sapa town early afternoon. At 4pm, we caught a bus back to Hanoi city. Six and a half hours later, tired and hungry, we arrived! Our stay and experience in Sapa had been honestly incredible. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been too! We felt so lucky with the weather too, I hope to go back again in the future some time! But for now, we have another big adventure to look forward to... Halong Bay!