Overnight bus ride from Hanoi to Sapa... we arrive in Sapa at 5am and taken to a hotel where we have breakfast and told to get ready for our 'easy' 3 hour trek up to the homestay.

I'm not really up for this but Stuart booked it and is really up for it so I can manage a couple hours walking can't I?

We meet our guide/mountain tribe woman Cao (pronounced Show) and she is SO small!!!!! Literally a third of my size......ok maybe half my size? But still, super small.

We get kitted up and set off walking through the village..... there are about 15 other H'Mong mountain women walking with us, i'm assuming to keep us company and make sure we're all safe?

We turn off the main road and start walking up this mountain, which is all fun and games until I slip in the mud and fall on my backside. 5 minutes in and I look like the scene where Arnie escapes the Predator (Stuart's only input in this blog......I've never watched it but I assume Arnie was covered in mud?)

Everyone starts laughing at me and these two mountain women help me up and we carry on. I SHOULD HAVE TURNED BACK THEN!!!!!!!!!!

We eventually make it to the top of this mountain and the views are something else, mountains and rice paddies.... I'm at the top and I'm covered in mud and sweat after falling at least another 100 times (everyone else is clean! Even the 60 year old man with us...). I have a sense of achievement and think 'it's all downhill now from here, it'll be easy'......... WRONG!!!

It had been raining the night before so the way down is just a pure mud slide, the two mountain women with me just have my hands all the way down and keep picking me up. There is no way this would have passed any health and safety measures back in the UK!

Managed to make it safely to the bottom of the mountain and I'm so relieved, we must be finished soon? NO! Cao then informs us we have another 2 hours until we reach the place for some dinner..... I might cry!

Cao then leads us up around rice paddies and waterfalls with the paths she is taking us on only a foot wide with a sheer vertical drop at the side! This would be so bad if it wasn't so muddy and we had something to hold on too! We literally could have died so many times. I definitley would have died if it wasn't for the two mountain women picking me up every 2 minutes!

We EVENTUALLY arrive for some dinner and I'm starving, thirsty, tired and a little sad..... but part of me is proud of what I've just done, I did have a back operation 11 months ago!???

We sit down and it feels AMAZING.... well it did for the whole 2 seconds before all the mountain women start pulling bracelets, bags, hats and other cr*p out of their bags and start surrounding us trying to sell it to us!

The two women that helped me up the full trek make a beeline for me and say "we helped you all the way so you have to buy stuff from us..." Oh right, I thought they were just being lovely and helping me but no, it was all a plan to get my money from me!!!

I end up buying a bracelet from her for like $5 or something stupid before they left me alone but as soon as my money was out the other women came over and tried selling me the SAME bracelet I had just bought from this other one!!!

Stuart tells me that tomorrow's trek I am having no help from the women as we can't afford to keep paying them to save my life!!!

You would think now we would be near the homestay and be able to rest and shower....wrong. It's another hours walk away! I'm sick of walking.

We arrive at the homestay and it's not what we imagined. We pictured that we would be staying with a local family in their house when in fact we are just staying in a hostel type house with the other guys from our trek. It's fun, there are ice cold beers so I'm happy!

We are fed by the family who owns the homestay and we drink beer and ricewine and play cards all night. The beds are just mattreses on the floor with mosquitoe nets around them but they are so comfy after the day we've had and we fall asleep.....

TO BE CONTINUED...