We got up early and had breakfast, taking all our bags with us. Galaxy Cruises fetched us at 8.35am, running half an hour late. We sat right tat eh back of the bus and our tour guide, Hung, was a young Vietnamese guy that spoke like a drunken turkey. He repeated himself immensely, which helped as we weren't sure what he was saying half the time anyway.We listened to our music for 1.5 hours and ten taken to an art market for the half way stop off. Edd was concerne...

We got in at 5.30am having both slept reasonably well. Okay, Edd did his usual head hits pillow 10 seconds later he's asleep until morning, I woke up at 1am because of an emergency stop which nearly threw me off the bed and then struggled to get back to sleep.The vultures descended again as we climbed off the train and we had to barge past the taxi drivers trying to get us to get a ride with them. We walked back to our hotel, which wasn’t far from the s...

The puppies had cried for half an hour and for a while Edd and I thought it was Mutley instigating the issues: he'd become very socialised in the last 2 days and was coming inside the house on his own, sleeping under our legs at the fire. He'd gone from cowering and shaking at human contact, to running up to us and wagging his tail when we arrived back from the toilet; we were both sad to be leaving him behind. Anyway, I eventually got up to see what the matter w...

It had rained overnight, it was still raining, everything was damp; I had absolutely no idea how I was going to get though the next 24 hours. I never thought I was a princess, but I was reconsidering the label. Everything was damp and it sounded like there was a waterfall on the other side of the wall where our bed was. We could see the water draining down the side of the mountain into their drainage area and then around the house, through the gaps in the wood. T...

Neither of us had slept very well on the train; we ate 2 of our banana's and snuggled in Edd's tiny bed for another half an hour. Our tiny nap kept being interrupted by people inviting themselves into our room to offer us tea/coffee or a bus to Sa Pa. (We were going to Lao Cai train station and it was another 1.5 hour journey to our final destination). We declined everyone, continuously and considering the time of day and the lack of sleep, manage to maintain our...