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 disappointed but since there's only one guide, the majority rules, so off we went.

My shoes were already caked in mud but at least they were dry...that was until I slipped crossing a small stream and both my feet ended up sodden. From then on I just decided to walk in all the water instead of trying to cross it, it wasn't hot enough for my shoes to dry so what did it matter walking through more water? The trek today was very leisurely and we walked through some fields and down a little path much different from the walking yesterday. We were slowly getting used to having to dodge out the way of motorbikes riding on the paths but when a guy came riding along with a huge plank of wood across his handle bars, in hindsight it was rather funny watching us dive into the hedgerows! We came down to the lunch stop early which was by a small waterfall and the guide said we had some time to explore if we liked. I wasn't ready to sit down again so I took on the challenge to get to the top of the waterfall and back down the steep slippery rocks again before lunch.

I crossed the bridge and waited for a group of young students to descend the path before I started my ascent. A couple of them warned me it was slippery and another couple commented that I was mental for wanting to climb up and back down again. Bless they were only young and I think they had been taken the hard route this morning as a couple of the girls were crying, I think they'd fallen over or slipped on some rocks on the way down. Anyhow, after they had gone I started my ascent, I wasn't going to take this lying down so I started racing up the side of that waterfall in another Born Survivor moment I was going to get to the top before my fear of heights got the better of me. Making it to the top and looking out across Sa Pa valley felt great, it was like a 'Rocky' moment as I jumped up and down in a 'Yeah I've done it' fashion before realising there was a guy asleep in the hut behind me and I'd just woken him up! The guy from Singapore came up shortly afterwards but I was already on my way back down.

Lunch was nice and we carried on our trek to another little village before getting our transfer back to Sa Pa town. We had some spare time this afternoon so I went exploring the shops. I bought myself a new rucksack, mainly because the one which came attached to my bag had no pockets or bungee cords or any compartments at all. It was really cheap too I think converted to Pound it might have been about 7 pounds so it'll probably fall to pieces at some point but it'll do for now and I have kept the other one as a spare just in case! I went to a little restaurant called Chocolate Baguette and had some Pho before getting the transfer back to Lao Cai. I got chatting to a British couple who were in Vietnam for a couple weeks and we arrived at the train station. Kind of felt back for a couple of the people as they hadn't gotten vouchers to exchange for tickets so they got stuck at the train station.

The cabin I was staying in was luckily just as nice as the one on the route up to Lao Cai. Wooden with 4 cabin beds (unfortunately I was on a top bunk again) but the toilets were locked. I went and asked the attendant who in very broken English and miming told me I had to run back to the train station and go there before the train left the station. It was quite funny really because I was running past all these women shouting after me asking if I wanted to buy beer on the platform and I just shouted sorry no time! NEVER use the toilets in Lao Cai station...that is all the detail I am going to give! I got back in record time and promptly fell asleep, hoping I was going to be rested for tomorrow!

The picture is me (doing a self portrait) at the top of the waterfall. It doesn't really show you how high it was from this angle but it was much higher than it looks.