Just made my way out of a major disaster zone!

Got the train on fri night to Sapa. It stopped half way there at a town called Yen Bai in North Vietnam, just as the worst flash floods are about to hit that area in years!About 100 people were killed and more missing.

The sleeper train stopped about 1am in the morning. At that time I could see the tracks outside- when I woke up after 6am, getting ushered off the train, I couldnt see the tracks with flood water. A group of us left then to wade the flooded streets to find a bus, apparently that would take us to Sapa. Some people we met later that night didnt leave the train to 5pm and had to take a boat off the train because the water was up to their chests!

We had no luck with the bus to Sapa. The whole area around North Vietnam was flooded and the roads were blocked everywhere with landslides.

So the next plan was to get back to Hanoi. We got on a bus were they attempted to fill it with as many people as they could. But no one was having it - they eventually got moving, but the main road was covered with landslides.

After several detours we got to a road that was flooded waste deep. The locals were helping people with their motorbikes across on bamboo rafts lol! Our bus driver decides to drive the bus through as fast as he can and blows the engine- smoke and water eveywhere, and we are stuck in the middle of this flood ha ha!

They get the bamboo rafts and we climb out the window and they take us to dry(ish) land. So we sit there for about 3 hours waiting to see if he can fix it or get us another bus - no joy in both cases. Theres about 30 of us mostly French people and one person who could speak Vietnamise and French - lucky or what. We are told that the town is only 3 km back so we decide to walk it and stay there the night.

It sounded easy but it wasnt. First we stopped a cattle truck and everyone jumped on that.We only went about 500 yards and he wanted us to get off it and back onto the bus so he could tow it, but we sacked that idea because bus driver was trying to charge us a ridiculus price.

So the walk began. We got split up and went the wrong way and lost the guy who speak Vietnamise. We ended up walking about 8 km with our rucksacks on, through villages and through flood waters up to our waists!

The villagers loved it though - they obviously hadnt seen many westerners before, never mind 13 of them troupsing through their village!

We adventually made it back just before dark. All the hotels were booked up but we managed to get a room with no beds and no bathroom door. They did put matresses down for us - they were pretty helpful.

The floods got worse that night and we ended up staying another night and got back to Hanoi the next day. The roads were an abosolute mess with all the land slides - it was like driving through a building site for 70km! Its all over the news here - the floods even turned a train off hte tracks

Was it on the news back home?