Slept surprisingly well on the train which rattled and rolled along, but we were so tired that we dropped off pretty quickly, that and a Sleep Well pill! Shouldn't have had those beers at the Golden Silk Hotel as I had to get up twice and dress to head down the carriage to the loo. Had to concentrate to hit the target in a constantly moving train!

The crew on the train roused us at about 5:45 and then offered us coffee before we arrived at 6:20am in Lao Cai. Unfortunately, our welcome was not as good as in Hanoi and quite a bit of phone bashing took place to locate our driver who presumably slept in! Lots of signs but none with our name on it. Eventually we caught a minibus up to Sapa which I think was about 30Km which we had to pay for. We arrived at the Amazing Sapa Hotel which was very nice. Eventually a nice lady turned up from our travel company who was very appologetic and even offered us her firstborn if we didn't write a bad review on Tripadvisor. (actually, that didn't really happen) She went through the activities for the day which mostly involved walking long distances in muddy conditions. We had to hire some gumboots and the walk was led by a lovely Hmong girl who couldn't have done a better job! (Note to self: When the tour company says "No need for walking boots, sandshoes will be just fine" pack a pair anyway! Gumboots have very poor tread on them for negotiating muddy rice paddy fields! The walk was lovely and when the morning fog cleared the high surrounding mountains came into view. The Hmong were very caring and helped us by holding our hands through the slippery bits. I had a feeling that we were going to have to pay for this help later on! Sure enough when we got to the lunch destination there was a frenzy of "you buy, you buy" as they pulled out all their craft stuff that they had lugged along the trek. Even when we had run out of money they still kept on, including the tiny children 4 or 5 years old! Everything smelt of wood smoke so I suspect there must be some respiratory issues here. They are all very poor and scratch a living out of tourists and growing rice. They are also all over Sapa trying to sell you the same type of hand made bags and scarves. The lunch was lovely and all well cooked.

Got back to the Amazing Sapa Hotel and had a welcome shower and happy hour where we sat in a luxury lounge sipping Hanoi Beer overlooking the squalor of this developing country only meters away on the other side the the window. Quite humbling really as it was only by accident that we happened to be born in a first world country.

Ate at a local restaurant called Sapa Village Restaurant which was lovely and we then retired.