So I got the bus from Sapa to Lao Cai. It was raining in Sapa so I thought I would go and have a look around Lao Cai. Lucky for me it stops right in front of the train station. The booking office said "soft sleeper full" so I said "OK hard sleeper". He saia "360000 dong". That is the price for soft sleeper so I told him Im not paying that. I went looking for another booking office or the internet so I could check the price. The couple of booking places I found quoted 600000 and 700000 for soft sleeper, but english is NOT their first language so they could have been quoting me for VIP. I found internet but viet rail didnt show the prices. I was walking around trying to sort stuff outand it started raining. Things have gone from bad to worse.
Back to the station to book the expensive sleeper. This time he said "hard sleeper full, only seat" to book that I had to wait for 2 hours for the ticket window to open. There is a bloke here trying to scalp me for 600000 fror a hard sleeper ticket. It depends who holds their nerve longest. I am right on the Chinese border, over the bridge is China, so there are loads of dodgy people everywhere and a thriving black market. I just gotta get out and let them know what I want.
Again I'm sitting here trying to work stuff out and a Czec couple walk in. We start chatting and they are the same and waiting for a ticket. While we are talking a dodgy cop, i was talking to earlier, comes over and offers me a ticket on one of tonight's trains. You gotta love the dodgy cops. He has offered me a sleeper seat fro 450000. I took it cos I was thinking I might get stuck in Lao Cai. As soo as I payed him he let me put my bag in his office to look aftre it before the train. He did heaps of business while I was sitting there.
While I was there a Dutch couple, who I have been travelling with on and off for a few days, come in and they wanted tickets for the next day. Bothe couples got seated tickets for 150000 and the only tickets, officially, are seated tickets. I think I did OK. I knew I was being scalped but it was my own fault. I should hace booked earlier cos it was Sunday night and heaps of people go to Sapa and Bac Ha markets and Sunday night would be by far the busiest.