Time to head into Vietnam! We wanted to start our tour of the country in the northwest - Sapa to be more precise, and we had a choice of how to get there; 1) Fly to Hanoi (northeast) from Luang Prabang, then bus/train overnight to Sapa - the easiest, less adventurous and more expensive option. 2) Take the 24 (or more likely 30) hour bus to Hanoi and then double back on ourselves by overnight train/bus - 30 hours on a bus in one go, no thank you very much. So that left option 3. Break up the journey and do it in a few stages heading in the most direct route. Probably would work out a little more expensive than option 2, but would be much more adventurous and back breaking.

Day 1 - Luang Prabang to Oudomxai;

We started well, by oversleeping and missing the early bus North to Oudomxai! No problem though as there was another one at 11am…which actually turned out to be 12, but what's an hour hanging around a bus station really? The journey north was beautiful. Some of the most stunning views we've had so far, beautiful mountain peaks, low valleys and tiny little villages. All along the mountain side you can see random little huts for the workers to rest during the hot part of the day. It's crazy to see people working on a 70 degree angle, good strong legs they must have!!

Thankfully we were in a big bus rather than a little minivan as the road was very wiggly windy and we went up pretty high in the mountains. The road had been freshly tarmacked as well which made for a very smooth ride. We only broke down (well, it wasn't so much of a breakdown, we stopped somewhere and the driver and a few others hopped out and grabbed the tool box and started banging at bits under the bus for a while - think there was a sizable hole in the exhaust!) and we were caught up in traffic for a while as they were laying the other side of the road, but the whole journey only took an hour longer than expected. So far, so good! We found our guesthouse, had an early dinner and hit the sack. We were both pretty worn out from the day, not sure why though as it wasn't the longest journey we'd done!

Day 2 - Oudomxai to Muang Khua;

Again, we overslept and missed the first bus. I hope this doesn't happen on day 3 as there is only one bus to Vietnam - and it's early. We picked up the bus at midday again, this time a slightly bigger than average minibus. We're getting quite used to being the only 'falang' on the buses now and apart from the odd curious glance, everyone is generally pretty friendly. After the lunch stop, the driver even offered us some of his sticky rice, we declined though as it was pretty wiggly windy again and it wasn't the best road to try walking down the middle of a bus. The guy next to me also offered some of his, which I accepted, along with meat of some kind. His English wasn't good and neither is my Lao…it tasted nice though and I'm still sure I've made it through this trip without eating any dogs. This stretch of the journey had been pretty painless, we were only here for a night and managed to find a lovely little guesthouse on the banks of the river Nam Ou…close enough to where the bus to Vietnam leaves in the morning. Just needed to clarify whether it's at 6am or 7am as I'd read some conflicting information. We had an extra day to play with on our Lao visa though if we miss it or if it didn't run that day because there weren't enough people. The tourist information reckoned it was 7am and only took 4 hours. Most reports on the internet suggested the bus left at 6am and took 6 hours…we roughly had something to aim for.

Muang Khua was a nice pretty little town, with a huge high suspension bridge over the river. Unfortunately, we didn't take a camera or phone with us for our evening stroll, but the view was stunning, with the sun dipping behind the mountains. On the way back to our guesthouse, which was at the end of a few little lanes, we saw possibly the biggest chicken we've ever seen - it was monstrous. So much so that we had to go back to our room and get my phone so that we could get a picture of it. I wasn't so sure about getting too close though as it looked like it would have your arm off! As it was our last night in Lao, we should have probably indulged in our last local dinner, but we were both feeling a little tired and in need of some comfort food. In fact, we chose our guesthouse based on the write up in the Lonely Planet guidebook rating their steak and chips very highly... Hindsight is a wonderful thing though when they had no steak, no water and our chips arrived after 2 hours …can't complain too much though as they were literally the best homemade chips we've had since being away! At least there were 3 crazy puppies running around to keep us entertained! So much for our early night!!

Day 3 - Muang Khua to Dien Bien Phu (Vietnam);

Well, we arrived at the bust stop in plenty of time, between 6 and 6.30am…the bus left at 7.30am. At least we got the chance to grab some brekkie and a coffee before we started off though. The immigration process was fairly painless and I'm glad we got a bus straight through Dien Bien (DBP) rather than try and clear the border under our own steam as there was roughly 4km of no man's land in the middle! The road conditions on crossing the border very quickly deteriorated due to them doing a lot of work around the area. Coupled with being quite high up on a mountain road, it meant some spectacular views, but a few hairy moments on the corners while trying to navigate round some big trucks. Soon enough though we were down in the flat valley with nothing but bright green rice paddies stretching out for miles, only interrupted by the odd electricity pylon.

We arrived in DBP at about midday and were planning on cutting the journey here and carrying on up to Lai Chau the next day (about 6 hours on), then the final push to Sapa the day after (a cool 2.5 hours). However, as we got off our bus, they were calling another one straight to Sapa…throwing caution to the wind, we bought a ticket and jumped on. I was trying to get some food before the journey as we were both pretty hungry, but the old guy cooking was taking soooo long that the bus almost left without me - when faced with a decision over getting on the bus or waiting for the food you've already paid for - I chose the bus. Luckily though, the guy chased down our bus when it was ready, a good thing as well as we had an unknown length of journey ahead of us.

There weren't many people on the bus, but it was packed!! Rice, vegetables, mattresses, even a 40" flat screen tv! I think we were in the local post bus. It meant quite a few little stops offs and a few rearranges of the bus - I was grateful though as I almost got decapitated by a mattress falling down. Although we stopped a few times to get off and stretch our legs, it was never quite long enough to get anything decent to eat. The journey passed reasonably quickly with the road winding through the valley through little villages and towns and past a few big new dams they're constructing along the river. Oh, and our driver almost had a fight with someone on the side of the road - unfortunately, we couldn't work out what was going on as our Vietnamese is not quite up to scratch! When we finally arrived in Sapa at about 7.30pm we were cold (all of a sudden being up at 1650m and basically in the clouds), tired and hungry. We hadn't had any time to even look at Sapa and where we might find somewhere to stay so I'd had to switch on my data and download a few web pages. As seems to be a running theme, we didn't get dropped off where I thought we would, so were faced with a 2km walk into the town to find a hotel…we started and quickly gave up, opting for a taxi instead. We ended up paying a little more than we'd have liked, but it was super comfortable and just what we needed.

After some long bus hours, we were finally in Vietnam! Definitely an adventure and totally worth it.