We were welcomed to Sapa's beautiful scenery when we arrived at 6AM. Within seconds the fog blew in and you couldn't see very far at all. Its fog we had never seen before, after walking for a few minutes we realised our hair was soaking wet from it. We managed to find the guesthouse we had booked and jumped straight in to the bed with the heated mattress.

Sapa is a hill station in the north of Vietnam, not far from the Chinese border.

Once rested we headed out for some breakfast, we both ordered French toast with bacon. Not what we expected; normal toast with a thin piece of melted cheese and a bitesize piece of bacon on top of each slice. Very disappointing! We then wandered round the Market where the hill tribe people sell clothes, jewellery, odd musical instruments and other bits and bobs; we heard that most of these are actually imported from China. We continued our walk round the large lake just as the fog started to clear a little, you could see all the mountains around.
That afternoon we found one of the many cafes recommended on the internet. A great cappuccino and burger waked us up a little. We didn't do much other than relax in the afternoon as we planned to go walking the next day.
We got up for breakfast and found somewhere that offered something similar to a full English. We had our drinks and waited, and waited. Pete tried asking the lady how long the food would take but after an hour it still hadn't come. He went to the back of the restaurant to ask again and had all the staff out trying understand what he was saying. The woman hadn't taken our order and the other staff weren't happy with her. We left and went a few doors up and by this time it was lunch.
We then walked down to a local hill tribe village a few kilometres downhill. The local people live in huts on the hillside and live a very basic life. They all wear the same black uniform. We noticed that they all had black hands, they went the colour you go when you wear a new pair of Levis. As we continued down we got to a small waterfall which made a nice pitstop. After a little rest we chose our next path up hill, unfortunately due to the fog there wasn't a view. We continued on our way and reached the path that would take us back into town, it was a long uphill walk. There were a few moto's here and one guy said he'd take us back up for 50,000 dong, less than £2. We felt a bit lazy but both jumped on the back of his moped and made are way up the steep road, well, just made it, the moped struggled a bit up hill with 3 people on it. When we got back to the town the fog finally started to break, it was incredible, you could see the fog moving away and it reviled a spectacular view that we hadn't been able to see before. But as quickly as the fog left it soon came back.

That evening we found a lovely little cafe with Mulled Wine, we couldn't resist so stopped off there before dinner which was also very tasty.

We had our minibus booked for the following day and were planning to get up 45minutes before to pack and get ready. We were woken up by someone banging on the door just before our alarm. A hotel worker told us the bus was going to be 40 minutes early so we rushed to pack our bags and jump on it within 5 minutes.

Our bus journey from Sapa to Dien Bien was our first real experience of travelling like locals in Vietnam. We were squashed on to the back seat with three other people and a baby, bearing in mind it only seats four, so we had to get pretty friendly. There were at least 30 people on the 22 seated bus and the roads were treacherous. We spent 10 hours winding through the mountains, the road had literally been dug out of the rock. There was no tarmac or paved areas just stones and dust. Every pothole we hit we were flung up from our seats, our heads smashing the ceiling, Kates more than Pete's; it must of been the weight difference.

We stopped twice on the way but the only thing the small shops seemed to sell were boiled eggs. By the time we arrived in Dien Bien Phu we were both starving. We checked in at the closest hotel to the bus station and bought our bus tickets for the following day. We then went to find the only restaurant in our guide book. We walked for an hour but the restaurant didn't exist so we walked back and sat at a Pho stall. Pho is the main Vietnamese dish, basically a noodle soup, and this wasn't the best one we had but it filled a hole.