Chocking back the usual breakfast of fried eggs and a baguette has taken its toll on me. One month of the same breakfast has led me to never want to see a fried egg again. Still, it is a staple that comes with almost every hostel booking and its better than nothing.

We basically spent most of today on our hostel's superb balcony, enjoying the view and peace while we read and laughed at our adventures so far. Thankfully, my body has somewhat recovered the trials of trekking over the mountains with a hangover and acted as a cathartic ordeal.

To get to our bus stop, in the north of town, we had a pleasant twenty minute walk from our hostel (which was parked a far greater distance from the bus stop than their website would have you believe). The small, mirror-like lake, just North of the town square, sits as a door mate to extremely European looking homes whose images are perfectly reflected on the lakes cold and still surface.

In town we had enough time to pop back into Sapa's market hall for some crispy pork and noodles (the best I'd had) before our bus arrived. Chelsea has now sworn off Dairylea sandwiches, believing it to be the root of her sickness. With that in mind she opted for a slightly questionable chicken baguette in order to avoid further poisoning; that girl's mind works in strange ways.

The bus journey back was bearable but tedious and seemed to drag on forever. I willed away my time loving picking the numerous loose threads from my new North Face puffer jacket which cost me a sensationally cheap 260,000d (£9); both it's quilted puffiness and my smugness at procuring such a bargain kept me extremely warm and comfortable.

Through some light reading on the bus I learnt an interesting tit bit about the streets in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. The 79 strangled streets are all named after the produce that was sold along them in centuries gone by. An example of this would be 'Hang Bac', the street we were staying on which translates to 'Silversmiths'. Other brilliant names include: 'Chan Cam' (String Instruments), 'Hang Khoai' (Sweet Potato) and 'Lo Su' (Coffins).

Picking up our bags swiftly from our tour provider, we shot back to our hostel and bunked down nice and early ready for Ha Long Bay trip in the morning.