After a slightly later start this morning I thought I would hire another bicycle and try and get out to see some of the other sights inside and outside of the town. So I went to reception and asked if it was possible to cycle to the Thien Mu Pagoda, the lady at the reception desk said yes it is about 7 km away...I couldn't help but think there was some sort of random theme developing here...was everything 7 km away? This was a much easier route it was pretty muc...

After spending another day doing practically nothing in Hanoi, the bus was late to take us to Hue. In fact it was SO late that we couldn't get picked up from the Hostel, we had to rush through town in the rain to another meeting point and grab it from there. I was not pleased as I was sweating off my body weight carrying both my bags tearing across town. After boarding the bus I realised it was just as bad as the one from Vientiane to Hanoi except it had a double...

After a reasonable nights sleep I woke to discover my ipod was flat as I had fallen asleep with it playing all night long, without a charger I wasn't listening to music on the train later. After some very nice breakfast of pancakes and fresh fruit we made a rough itinerary for the day. A couple people in the group weren't feeling too good so we were going to take the easier route instead of the hard mountainous route for todays trek. I will admit I was a bit disa...

Arrival in Lao Cai was very early in the morning, we came out of the train station all weary eyed from a rough nights sleep to be greeted by the usual mass of people asking if we needed a taxi to Sa Pa. On first impressions Lao Cai is just another town full of hotels and neon flashing lights, but looking above the buildings and past all of the random lights you see the hills and mountains in the background and remember why you made the train ride. A short transf...

Once I had booked my tour to Sa Pa, I happened to be sat in reception and I heard that there was going to be a tour to Snake Village tonight. I had been struggling to find some people to come along so I jumped at the chance to get there tonight with some people from the other Hostel. A short journey by minivan and we had arrived in Le Mat (Snake Village), you knew you were pretty close with all the carvings and drawings everywhere of snakes...the first thing on ...