The room was pitch black when I woke up which was due to there being no window. This means you never know what the time is, could be afternoon for all you know, in this case it was 7am.

I felt pretty crap today and the dodgy stomach was now in full swing. I was still hungry however and managed to consume eggs and bread. I assumed this would go down better than noodles at this stage. Our aim today was to get to Sapa, a popular tourist destination situated close to the Chinese border. It is a hilltop town which has surround villages of traditional Viet hill tribes. To get there would involve an over night train which we had yet to book. As the hotel was charging a lot of money to book them we decided to head to the train station ourselves. We had done our research online and heard accounts of how easy it is to secure tickets...... too good to be true some could say........

We strolled to the train station which luckily wasn't too far at our pace but the sweat hit us hard. My research had informed us that Hanoi train station is divided into two sides separated by the tracks. The west side is much smaller and deals with the northern bound trains, which we were interested. The main station on the east side deals with all rest including the express trains heading southbound all the way to Ho Chi Minh City (a bottom numbing 36 hours if you call that express). We were a bit disorientated and decided to ask for help in he main station which was pretty busy. The lady informed Laura (after ignoring me) that we could buy our tickets on this side and we would have to queue up. Basically the ticket office utilises a allocated numerical ticket system, you wait until your number is display above a kiosk. This sounds fantastic and in reality should make it a speedy and hassle free process..... unless you are in Vietnam.

As us two were sitting with some locals holding our ticket attentively on the uncomfortable, metal chairs we noticed crowds gathering around the booths. Obviously a large proportion of Viet feel the ticket system is overrated and decide just to shove their way in. This is normally done by thrusting your arm in, barging people out the way and shouting loudly to the ticket lady. This behaviour is like sacrilege to a British person. Laura who was by now both fed up with Vietnam and Vietnamese people decided to go down the "when in Rome" route and pushed her way through eased by towering above locals. I think they are so surprised when you get aggressive like them that they instantly back off a bit... obviously it isnt seen very often. We were informed from the lady behind the counter that only the most expensive tickets were available for the trains tonight and they were inflated from normal price anyway. This is interesting as two tiered train ticket pricing for foreigners was supposedly abolished in the early 00's, funny that especially as on the screen it says foreigner price. By now I thought Laura's head was going to explode as she dragged a guy over and made him translate for her asking 'are these tourist prices??' To which the women replied 'everyone the same'... At this point she was promptly called a liar (the PG version) and we stormed off. The prices were three or four times what are quoted on all the information sites and even the price board so if travelling in Vietnam be aware.

I decided to head around to the other station to buy tickets from the northern bound side. On arriving the lady just stared blankly at me and shoved a map in my face which told me to go back to the main station, this was getting frustrating. In summary, at this point to get to Sapa tonight would cost a lot of money and the trains were apparently full tomorrow. We couldn't help getting the feeling someone was not being totally honest with us here. Laura was quite frustrated and we felt heading to an air conditioned cafe may let us gather our thoughts.

Over an iced tea we were just looking like we had fought an epic battle. We were tired, frustrated and generally fed up. Everything in Vietnam just seemed to be such hard work and stressful, perhaps we were being too hard on ourselves. I decided to head back to the station and book the sleeper tickets even though they were more expensive than I hoped. I queued for the best part of an hour, after fighting off the locals for my spot, to be told everything was now fully booked. As you can imagine , Laura was not best pleased.... Actually i think i could hear her blood pressure haha. After traipsing around with all our bags, water and snacks in the heat, queuing up twice for tickets and not getting a lot of help we resigned to staying in Hanoi another night.

We walked back up through town where we were offered a good price by a hotel we had visited previously but turned down. I looked like I had been dragged through a hedge and doused with a hosepipe yet Laura always seems to look classy and elegant no matter how flustered she is... however she must have felt sorry for us as she was very kind and chased us down the street saying she would help us. She gave us a very nice room with a fridge to cool our water and not to mention breakfast too and for a very good price. We decided to write today off as a bit of a disaster which does happen from time to time in travelling. It is just the constant scamming here and being on the ball all the time just wears to thin but hopefully tomorrow, the tide would turn.

We finished the evening by heading to the BBQ and rice place we visited on our first stint in Hanoi. The chicken was just as good as before and the taste of free beer was ever so sweet after the events of today!