By now familiar with the north vietnamese attitude towards pricing (somewhat less than transparent!) we (Billy,Ellen, Steve, Sharon and I) decide to organise own own tour up into the mountains and avoid not only the "western markup" that tour operators liberally apply but the feeling we are being shifted around like cattle with useless tour guides such as morning breath in tow! The journey to the train station brings with it our first challenge (well more a scam really..) we had split ourselves and our luggage between 2 taxis and head to the station which rather helpfully has 2 entrances, rather predictably we end up at different ones! But wait, enter stage left a seemingly helpful local who offers to help us with our bags (of which me and Sharon have 3, one's Billy's we haven't gone crazy with the shopping!!) and locate our friends at the other side. So off he trots with a description of our friends in tow and after much persuading gets them to come back with him. All of this basically an elaborate plot to befriend us wait for our guard to be down and then hit us with an extortionate charge to upgrade our seat to beds (how very friendly!) not feeling rich we opt to stick with what we have and call a guard to get rid of the tout who was frankly starting to get annoying by this point. After experiencing 2 crazy train workers already, one, who opted to hit Sharon with the metal hole punch ticket thingy to stop her from going through a door and the other practically kicking me off of the step outside her cafe with waving arms and a disgusted face, apparently I was spoiling the view, charming! we weren't willing to take any chances! So we settled down for a sleepless night in our soft sleeper seats (coach seats that recline so you are almost sat on the persons lap behind you) accompanied by the most fierce air conditioning known to man, not our first choice but 100% better than the hard seats on offer that can be best described as park benches and are only marginally better than the actual cattle class!

6.30 am our arrival in Lao Chi and the sunrise don't bring with them warmth, fresh mountain air and spectacular scenery and the ability to now move my legs however a very good substitute! Getting organised and a bit wiser to the scams we decide to hang around until the ticket booth opens to book our return journey, as I for one couldn't contemplate a repeat of last night. Sadly there are only 3 beds left so Billy and Ellen who don't have a 24hr bus straight after to Laos to contend with very kindly let us have them (thanks guys, much appreciated ). The tout this end had been hassling us since we stuck our heads out of the carriage in the morning (a bad move when we had all no sleep and we were probably less than polite!) finally gets his way as we realise there is only 1 bus heading to Sapa (40km away) which has been waiting for us since 6.30 along with 2 very disgruntled passengers. (The Vietnamese don't go anywhere until the bus is totally overloaded!). I spent the next few hours staring at my knees trying desperately not to be sick but my fellow travellers tell me that the scenery was something else. 5km from Sapa our dodgy sounding, overloaded bus broke down (I'm actually amazed that this hasn't happened before now) but it was all good as the bus just needed a drink of water (which the driver grabbed from Billy, who tried to claim a discounted bus ticket for it but with no avail) it gave me the chance to relieve myself, whist the others took photo's (of the scenery, not me). We also had our first encounter with some minority villagers who were surprisingly quick to appear from no-where to try and sell us stuff (I think the driver was maybe on commission!).

On arrival in Sapa I couldn't help be reminded of European ski resorts (minus the snow and ski's) very unlike the rest of Vietnam and still freezing cold. Ignoring the touts we settled on a hotel for $2 each with fabulous mountain views from our beds that came complete with duvets, result! We had one of the best nights sleep ever. Before collapsing into bed we did manage to explore a bit with our incredibly useless map and the help of the hill tribe girls that followed us everywhere, (we aptly and endearingly named them munchkins as they were 4ft nothing and we were officially giants!, even Steve.. ) During the day it actually got quite warm but the minute the sun went back down the temperature plummeted to 4 degrees (I know, I know England is cold but we have been used to upwards of 25!). That evening we got wrapped up in whatever we could find in our backpacks to keep us warm and splash out on sheppard's pie washed down with a glass of mulled wine, lovely!

Following serious negotiations (over about 2 english pounds, we are ridiculously tight and this bargaining lark is becoming a sport!) the night before, we head out with our private mini van and driver (get us!) to visit the home of the munchkins after leaving them outside our hotel (they wait outside for us to get up in the morning) they miraculously appear at the start of the trek before us (Billy and Sharon are convinced that they used teleports, I am more of the belief that they used a motorbike). The next 5 hours was filled trekking through rice paddies and terraces, bamboo roots and dirt tracks in the brilliant sunshine. The munchkins run through the rough terrain we go more carefully on the slippery muddy tracks, stopping to dish out balloons and whistles as we go. There are loads of photo's that do a better job of explaining the scenery than me, so make sure you take a look. Our lunch stop at the top of the mountains incorporates a pool game with definitely the best scenery ever known from a pool table and probably the best trick shot ever, a joint effort of me hovering 2 fingers above the table and Sharon directing, aiming, shooting and potting whilst laying across the table, superb! The afternoon had a waterfall and bridge crossing in store and we also said our goodbyes to our dedicated munchkins who had now followed us like lost puppy dogs for 2 days, we felt the need to buy something from them, some being more ripped off than others (Billy & Steve) and others happy with their purchases! All in all a fab day, spectacular scenery and great company (yes even the munchkins!).

Bach Ma market was colourful, noisy and ridiculously busy! A section for clothes, live animals, food, machinery and off course hair cuts?! After Sharon and I continually hassling Steve about having a grade 2 all over he finally gave in (anything for a quiet life!) and actually sat outside amongst the hustle and bustle of the market to get it done. Luckily we had met Matt (a reptile keeper in Steve Irwin's zoo) who could model almost the exact hair cut bar the dreads hanging out the back, whilst that would have been amusing sadly Steve didn't have enough hair in the first place for us to stitch him up. So we pointed and waved our arms around to direct the Vietnamese school teacher (his day job) to cut Steve's hair, yikes he is braver than me! (Steve not the Vietnamese man). It turned out that the guy was really good and the new style totally suited Steve who loved all of the newfound attention and females stroking his head. The bus ride back to the station was far less eventful than the one to the market, which involved us winning the how much stuff you can fit in a minibus competition, as we all had half a seat and Sharon had bags stacked up round her head, until we had the sense to move them to lower ground (for Sharon's head sake not the bags!) and thank god we did as shortly after we attempted an emergency stop/swerve to avoid a dog sadly an unsuccessful one (not good for the dog but Sharon's head remained intact). We did manage it safely to the station visiting a Chinese border crossing for sunset en-route, with loads more countries still to visit Sharon and I weren't tempted to head back, but it was weird to think after so much travelling we were so close to China again.

We passed 4 hours at the station eating, drinking, chatting and taking photo's, one more prominent than the others Steve staring at Viv's boobs, oh I mean scarf!! Our train journey was loads better than the way out, we could actually lay down although the stench from the toilet down the corridor was slightly off putting! Safely back in Hanoi we enjoyed a lazy day with Billy and Ellen as our 5 was about to become 3, boo hoo! managed to change our remaining dong after a few trips to different travel agents all of which just seemed to pick random exchange rates from their head (one even offered us 27, the exchange rate was 17!!) and headed for Laos...