So we made it to the train station preparing oursselves for the night train ahead. when we booked the train we wanted the soft sleeper but they didnt have any left on the way so we had to get the hard sleeper, so as you can imagine we were very concerned about what we were going to be sleeping on! never the less the bed was suprisingly comfy - there were 6 of us in the cabin with 4 vietmanese people andus two. They didnt really speak english but we smiled and nodded etc. We read our books for a little bit then both slept very well - we were woken up by music played in our cabin as we were pulling into Lao Cai. Outside the station we grabbed a minibus to reach Sapa, just a 35km journey up a very windy mountainside road. We made it safely and on arriving in Sapa some lady took us to her hotel which was lovely and mega s\cheap :)

The first thing we noticed about Sapa was the difference in temperature but we put this down to being eraly in the morning. We went back to bed for just two hours then got up to explore the town. Sapa was a beautiful little town set on the side of a mountain, local ladies and girls from surrounding villages made there way into Sapa every day in their traditional dress to sell handmade products. They looked amazing, they were carrying big heavy baskets on their back, or babie or things on their head. They all try to talk to you to encourage you to buy from them, they ask you your name, age, where your from, how many brothers/sisters you have etc, it is knind ofsweet but a little annoying. We made friends with one girl who was 12. She had taken a year out of school to help her family sell stuff. Our second friend was 19, she lived in a small villiage 7kms away, she travelled to Sapa every day with her 4month old baby on her back leaving her 3year old at home. She was married at 16 to a boy 2 years older tha her. When she asked if we would buy anything we kept saying maybe later It was so hard beacuse they all seemed so desperate but you cant buy from everyone.

After lunch we walked 2km to a small villiage called Cat Cat - it was right down in the valley so we got a nice view walking down the mountain. Wlaking down Cat Cat itself involved many many steps, passing lots of little huts with people working in them or doing day to day duties, we passed people working int he rice fields. It was really hot in the direct sun so it was nice to bwe walking under the shades of trees everynow and again. In one field we passed a group of 6 little piglets playing with each other - they were having a ball running around - they were sooo cute. At the bottom of the villiage was a large waterfall and hydroevlectric plant. WE were looking for the motos to take us back up as we had been promised by several drivers but realised theypicked you up from top of villiage not the bottom so we had to climb all the way back up the steps! not fun!

After eventually catching moto we headed back to hotel and got under our covers and read our booke\s for a couple of hours - it was so incredibly cold - we had trousers and long sleeved top on :) We spent the evening chilling at some bar.

Wed 15th - We got up early and headed to office where we booked our one day trek - we were hoping to be on a trip with some people our age but turns out not only were people not our age, they were all french and so was our guide, whose english was not superb, never mind it was still fun. On getting off of the minibus we were surrounded by 20 ethnically dressed villiage people, all asking where you are from etc. they attach themselves to you - Mel had 3 friends who were all relatively young and Gill had two older ladies. We learnt alot from our friends as their english was betterthan our guides! they walked us all the way to the first villiage and then played the guilt trip a\that we were friends and that we should buy from them , Mel literally had 5000VND with her so she could only buy a friendship bracelt off of one girl - the oter girls c\gota little angry, Gill bought a bracelet of each old lady. We then treked through the valley to the next villiage where more ladies joined us. These villiages were so basic it was unbelieveable. We saw lots of local children at school and then Gill picked herself up a bong smoking granny who liked to hold her hand to help her over the paths - it was so funny - this granny was 45 but looked so old and was about half the height of gill! We had lunch in a home stay house and then headed back to Sapa - we spent the evening wandering around the market and finding our firned so we could buy something off of her. We had little time to past before we had to get the minibus back to Lao Cai to catch our luxurious soft sleeper back to Hanoi. The sleeper wasnt that much different - beds were slightly more comfortable and there were only 4 people in cabin but apart from that not much in it.

Sapa was probably one of our favourite places as it was so different from everywhere else in Vietnam we had visited and the people were all so polite and seemed generally interested to talk to you.