As soon as we woke up we headed downstairs to use the wifi and book our trip to Sapa. The girl at the desk is very sweet and came over to the table bringing us coffee while talking us through the details. We booked three nights/ two days at sapa doing the "easy trekking experience". Two of the nights included will be spent on a sleeper train travelling from hanoi to Lai Cao and vice versa. The trip includes an english speaking tour guide, breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as a night in the Sapa Summit Hotel. We also booked our flights from Hanoi to Bangkok for 16:35 on the 25th. Skyscanner wasn't accepting daniel's card so we used a different site to book it.
Once we paid for the trip we headed back up to our room to shower and get dressed before heading out. Our first stop was KFC where i ordered a zinger burger meal and Dan had popcorn chicken. Once we finished the meal daniel went downstairs to grab us a soft ice cream cone for 3,000VD only 10p! The ice cream tasted like soft, cold marshmallow; just like those rice krispy squares, we ate these on the balcony of KFC while watching the traffic below us.
We enjoyed them so much that we bought another one each before heading to the lake to walk around. We came up to the red bridge connecting the city and a small island in the middle of the lake so we paid 40,000VD each and crossed the bridge and into a weird cultural building. We walked around inside which had a model of a famous giant turtle from a lake as well as a life sized horse made from metal painted red. We took a walk around the building beside the lake which was framed by the roots of ancient trees that had almost grown outward into the water. We crossed back over the bridge and continued to walk around town.
We walked passed a statue of some famous vietnamese guy and took some photos there before continuing our walk around parts of town we hadn't been before. After walking for quite a while igot really thirsty and so we stopped in a small shop which specialises in this weird coconut milk and colourful taro drink. I had seen it being served loads around Asia but never got round to trying it until now. It was really tasty, there were loads of colourful gelatine balls, some green, some pink as well as an opaque square jelly thing. Daniel didn't get one for himself but had some of mine and i think he was pleasantly surprised.
We slowly walked back in the direction of our hotel and we were toying with the idea of going back to KFC, this time to try the katsu curry type thing. It's only 29,000VD ($1.5) so it would be a crime not to. When we got to kfc and ordered the food i was surprised to find the sauce on top of the steamed rice was in fact gravy and not curry sauce! It came with two small chicken strips so we ordered a small portion of fries to share. When we finished we went back to our hotel to wait for the bus to pick us up and take us to the train station at 18:45.
While we were waiting in reception, a bunch of Argentinians came in and began complaining about a cruise they had booked at Halong Bay. One of the men was quite aggressive and said that the captain turned off the electricity in the evening, there were cockroaches in the room and they weren't really allowed to do anything. I didn't like how he was speaking to the guy and they all kicked up a bit of a stink but they had paid for the cheapest cruise available, around $40 i think it was so really, what do you expect. Dan and i sat there content with our cruise and left reception as it was starting to piss us off.
When i was sitting outside on the chair looking through the photos on my camera, i noticed a small crows forming behind me also looking at my photos. It was a group of adorable little school girls and one of them struck conversation with me and her english was incredible. They only looked around 7/8 years old but when i asked she said she was 11! They were all waiting for their parents to come and pick them up on the motorbikes so we stayed chatting until they came. She noticed the piercings in my ears which aren't common in Vietnam and when i told her i also had one on my belly she couldn't really believe it! I dragged Daniel outside to say hi and he took a group photo of us all making a peace sign, a very popular pose in South east asia.
Once the kids had left, the man working at our hotel came out and offered Daniel a hit from his bong. It's only tobacco they smoke in it mind, its a long piece of bamboo with a nuzzle at the bottom to put the tobacco in and burn and when Daniel tried some he got an epic nicotine rush. We went back inside to await our pick up. We left our main backpacks in a room at the hotel and took only our day sacks as i had to bring my ipad as i'm so behind on the blog and that really gets on my t***.
The bus came around 30 minutes later than expected so we clambered on and i said hey to the couple at the back and then we made another pick up to get another spanish couple and then drove to the train station where we were handed our tickets and told what platform we would have to be on. We had quite a bit of time as the train departs at 21:50 so we both got a baguette, i got cheese as always and i also bought some sour cream and chive pringles for snacks.
We walked through the station and over the train tracks to platform 9 and headed towards coach 10 which is where our beds are. We showed the man our ticket and asked if it was the third carriage to which he nodded. It was empty when we got on so we half though we would have the room to ourselves until two dutch guys came in. We were in their beds but it didn't matter either way. As we had got comfortable, two asian men came into the room and it turns out dan and i were in the wrong place! He demanded we get off so we said bye to the dutch guys and continued down the carriage. Another worker pointed us to the room at the end where there was an american woman and we laughed about how confusing the ticket system is. We were joined in our room by an asian man, Dan took the bottom bunk and i had the top.
We spoke with the woman for a while and it turns out she works in london! Only the second person we've met from our city! She spoke of her travels and we gave her lots of advice about where to go and where to avoid in Vietnam. She only has 2 weeks to explore the country and is hoping to go back to Angkor wat as the last time she was there was 10 years ago! She said she had been to the alps, india, Malaysia, Mexico and sooo many other countries and how her dad read up a lot of Vietnam as he'd been there before.
Daniel fell asleep as did the asian man on the bottom bunk so me and her (i never did get her name) stayed up until 00:30 chatting and eating pringles. It was like a slumber party on a train, sod the age gap it isn't relevant, i still felt like a little girl again! I didn't get to write my blog which was the original plan but when we noticed the time we both turned off our lights and got some sleep as the train is supposed to arrive in lai cao (town near sapa) at 05:00am, although that isn't very likely.