Hey!

This morning we travelled from Cat Ba Island to Ha Long which took 4hrs. Once we had reached dry land we then had another 4hrs bus drive to the capital, Hanoi. Once in Hanoi we had to wait 2hrs for a minibus to drop us to Hanoi train station. We then caught a 10hr overnight train to Sapa which is Northern Vietnam.

When at the train staion we were disturbed to find out that the company we had booked with had forgotten to give us our train tickets. Due to us being conned earlier on in the week this caused us to go into panic mode.

Luckily we were approached by a young American guy from Orange County, California called Shaun. He spoke fluent Vietnamese and saved our bacon. Strangely enough it turned out he is a manager at the hotel that we are staying at. He was the most helpful person we've met so far, he showed us into the station, showed us our train and even showed us to our cabin.

We arrived in Sapa at 7am and went straight for the buffet breakfast as we were hungry from the train. Soon after breakfast we took a stroll into town and visited the markets and shops for a general look around. A few hours later we walked back to our hotel for lunch and a bit of research for our next location, Laos.

Soon after we had a 6km trek with a Black H'mong tribal lady called "Sue" she was honestly the smallest person we've ever seen. At first we thought she was a young child and soon found out she was 18, married and had a 1 year old child. Made us laugh as she was married at 15. She was a very good guide though and taught us a lot about her tribe.

After our trek we had dinner with a Canadian guy we had met prior and then headed into town again to a local bar to play pool and have a few beers. After refuelling the tanks we walked back up to the hotel and watched Man Utd spank Birmingham 5-0.

x