i was woken up by a woman shouting "tea! Coffee!" Down the aisle but managed to get back to sleep as it was unlikely we had arrived yet. It was around 09:30 when Daniel woke us up and we gathered our bags and disembarked the train to walk out of the station to find the guy who would drive us to Sapa. He was holding a big "Sapa Summit Hotel" sign so we showed hi our tickets and a group of us followed him to the mini bus in the car park. Daniel bought a cup of coffee fro a woman walking around selling it to travellers in need of a caffeine boost. A man selling french stick also popped his head into our bus to try and get someone to buy some. I was waiting till we got to the hotel to have breakfast.

We began driving out of Lao Cai town and up into the mountains to Sapa. As we climbed higher up the windy roads it began to get very misty and visibility was very poor. The roads were so bendy and windy which got me nervous as it was hard to see if anything was coming around the bend in the opposite direction. My ears began to go all funny which proves just how high up we were until we arrived in Sapa Town around 20 minutes later. The town is very hilly and bendy and there are lots of women dressed in traditional tribal costume walking around with babies attached to their back or sitting on the pavement making some embroidered clothes.

We arrived at the hotel and headed to reception who told us that we couldn't check in yet but pointed us towards the luggage room where we could leave our bags. They also have a shower room but u couldn't be arsed. We headed down to the restaurant where there was a buffet breakfast set out. I excitingly grabbed a plate and lifted open the aluminium lid to see, wait for it, carbonara. I thought that was a bit weird so check all the other trays to find fried rice, noodles, sauteed vegetables and sausages with sweet bread. None of this tickled my fancy as i was expecting some eggs with toast at the least but in the corner i spied a noodle soup section so grabbed a bowl and made myself some. A man quickly came behind the counter and poured the broth into the bowl for me. I grabbed a coffee and we sat down to eat.

The spanish boy was laughing with us about the breakfast option but when i asked turns out he wasn't spanish because he had the most english accent i ever heard. Turns out he's from England but living in Malaysia but his girlfriend is from spain so they both converse in spanish, his name is Gabriel and his girlfriends is Nadia (pronounced nathia with the spanish accent). Once we finished breakfast we met back at reception where we were given our it itinerary for the next two days. Today we will trek 5km to visit a village nearby and come back to the hotel for lunch leaving the rest of the day for us to explore Sapa town. We met out tour guide Vun who is a local woman from a nearby village who was dressed in the traditional attire made of black linen and velvet with colourful embroidery on it.

As soon as we left our hotel a group of village women approached us making chit chat, but their real agenda was to sell us souvenirs. I can't ignore people when they ask me questions so i was walking along chatting to two of them who made me pinky promise to buy something off of them later. They are selling some nice shoulder bags, bangles, rings and bracelets made fro colourful fabric. We followed Vun downhill on the road for a few kilometres and i forgot that walking downhill is just as hard as going up as you have to control the muscles in your legs and i was feeling muscles in my ass work that i didn't even know existed!

We passed through some valleys with shops selling some more souvenirs and a few children approached us trying to sell us bracelets. I can't ignore them and feel so bad saying "no thank you" but i really do need to watch my money. We visited a small place where there was an old fashioned contraption used to grind corn and we both had a go on that. I was looking at the silver jewellery they were selling but didn't see a silver stamp so left it which is a shame as some of the pieces were right up my street. Gabriel showed me some jars that had snakes inside and Daniel got a small cup of apple wine to try which was delicious and tasted like port mixed with cider, very sweet but very strong at the same time.

We continued to walk downhill through the mountains and around the lush rice fields. The weather slowly got better which meant that visibility improved enough to take some photos although because our cameras are a pile of s*** you can't see much which is such a shame, i wish i brought my slr! We walked across a wooden bridge held up by thick wires and underneath was a stream full of big rocks with children splashing around in the water. We had the chance for a rest here so we bought some water and sat down to have a smoke and admire our surroundings. There are quite a few families in Sapa trekking which i have a lot of respect for. Who needs a week in benidorm when you can see the amazing rice fields of northern Vietnam?!

We continued our walk, uphill this time which got slightly harder as the sun was out now. We said goodbye to Vun and she said that if we follow the road all the way up it will take us back to the hotel so me, daniel, Gabriel and Nadia went on without the others to trek uphill back to the hotel. We came across a shortcut up the side of the mountain i stead of following the road round and up and at first i wasn't too keen on the shortcut but didn't want to seem like a pansy so off we went. There was not path, just indentations of mud from where people have taken the same route. I may have been quicker than the road but it was by no means easier and it left me sweating like a pig. I was happy to reach the top!

We followed the road back into town when the woman who approached us in the morning came over to chat and sell me something. She just kept going on and on about how i said i would get something later to which i said i want to get back and shower first so she said she would wait for me. In the end i bought a silver bangle, she promised me it wouldn't change colour and at fist she asked for 150,000 but there was no way i would pay that so we cut a deal and i gave her 100,000. Once i bought something from her her friend began following us uphill saying that i pinky promised i would buy fro her so now i had to. I was not in the mood as i was sweating and panting and really just wanted to get back and shower. She was persistent and followed us uphill and up all the stone steps so me and Daniel began power walking to get away from her, mean i know but she went a bit OTT when she began following us.

We finally got to the hotel and i said hello to the slightly crazy but very friendly woman outside selling water. I had given her the rest of my pringles in the morning as i didn't want them and she's just so happy and smiley it really touched my heart. We got our room key fro reception and handed over our passports. We are on the 5th floor so we took the elevator which is on the outside of the building and provides a view of the building next door and the dogs sleeping beside it. When we got off the lift the Aussie couple who were in the minibus with us fro hanoi met us at the lift and could see how much we were sweating to they asked if it was a hard trek but then laughed when i explained the sweat was from running away fro a village woman. We said bye to them and headed into our room.

The room is spacious and airy with two big windows providing a lovely view of the outside eating area and mountains. Daniel washed his trainers and left them on the windowsill to dry as they stink to high heaven. We had a shower and then i rolled us a spliff to smoke as a reward for the exercise we did (only 5km, nothing compared to the 12km on tomorrow's agenda). We got carried away chilling out in the room that we almost forgot about lunch, we thought we may have missed it as it was already around 14:00! We headed down to the restaurant anyway with our lunch voucher and the waitress said lunch had finished but them said they only have curry left which was fine by us.

We sat outside on the terrace and daniel went to collect his trainer which had fallen off the windowsill when he opened the window. We sat on the table next to Gabriel and Nadia and they said that the food was lovely. As did the Aussies when we met them at the lift so i was getting excited now. When i came i was pleasantly surprised. I was expecting just a bowl of rice and some chicken curry but we were also given some pumpkin soup and veggie spring rolls, what a feast! I couldn't finish mine so gave some to Daniel, the portions were very generous it was like a set menu type thing.

When we finished eating, we headed back up to the hotel room where we had a power nap. The power nap lasted around four hours as it was 19:00 when i woke up and got daniel to wake up too because i didn't want to miss dinner. I wasn't at all hungry but lord knows if i pay for food in advance, i'm eating it. When we went down to the restaurant we saw Gabriel and Nadia again who also over slept but still managed to explore the town for around an hour. We asked them what they cathedral was like but he said it was just like any church but had been recently painted white and that we didn't miss much.

The menu was full of around ten different set menu options and i went for the one with sweet and sour fish. When it came it was okay. It didn't blow me away or anything but it could have just been because i was lacking an appetite. I kinda wish i got the burger or a sandwich instead as the one Nadia was eating looked delish. Once we had finished i was craving something sweet so before we went back to the room we went across the road to a small shop to buy a pack of oreos. I should mention i wanted to do this after lunch but we were scared the village woman would be waiting for us and couldn't be arsed with the conflict.

With oreos in hand, we took the lift back up to the room where we smoked another spliff while watching animal planet. Really we were looking for the discovery channel but i don't think they had it. We also watched the film "fantastic 4" but i really wanted to get some sleep as we have a full day of trekking ahead. Me and dan had a little tiff about turning the tv off and rolling a joint and blah blah blah. I went to bed clutching my bag so daniel couldn't get the weed as seem as he couldn't turn off the tv which he wasn't even watching to let me sleep. We can both be pretty petty at the best of times.

Notes: loads of rice paddies lining the edges of the mountains in every direction. Mist settling and moving along the very top of the mountains. Loads of small streams running down the hills and gutters for the rice. Loads of hassle to buy things. Village women have gold teeth. The aussie man reminds me of lovely regular at balans who is the head teacher of school in ilford.