Tuesday 3rd January Surely the idea of sleeper carriages on trains is that you actually should get some sleep. (I know radical isn't it?) Not necessarily so, one can lie down and even feel relatively comfortable despite the incessant light creeping out from under the door, the constant shaking and tilting and the noise coming from all quarters as the train winds it's way towards our destination (Lao Cai) high up in the mountains in the North of Vietnam. Needless to say Stu got no sleep on the journey. Sometimes you are not sure if you have been dozing but I was sure that I was awake for the whole journey. Eventually it just gets to the stage where I am waiting for my watch alarm to go off so I can clean my teeth over the smallest sink imaginable and try desperately hard not to wee down my leg with one eye closed and the other open. We left Hanoi at about 10pm and arrived in Lao Cai at about 6am. You could say that I was in a slightly grouchy mood. Amy (as usual) managed to get a few hours sleep (are top bunks more or less comfortable? discuss) and is bouncing down the platform towards our minibus. The usual organised chaos reigns in the car park as some guy with a clipboard tries to organise how many people should get on a 16 person minibus. Rocket science? Apparently so. After asking us and several others if we were in a group of 2 to fill the last 2 spaces on the bus, to which most of us replied "yes", we stand around waiting for something. Only when another completely random couple arrive at the bus do they get let on ahead of those already waiting. I started to laugh at this point as otherwise I would have cried. The first minibus departs and thankfully there is another waiting. We all wedge ourselves inside and the 1hr journey to Sapa begins. The scenery on the way up is truly breathtaking with the thick mist hanging to the tops of the mountains as we climb higher and higher. It's like a massive white duvet has been spread over the whole area with just a few mountain peaks poking out from below. Really quite enchanting. We climb ever further upwards and the first wave of tiredness hits us so that the rest of the journey I'm sure we look like a couple of nodding donkeys. We arrive in Sapa leaving the mist behind, the skies are blue and the sun is shining. We get dropped at a typically 'pre-arranged' hotel point where we are just expected to get out of the bus and accept any old room for an extortionate price. Good ploy really as the organisers know that we are all really tired and probably not bothered to put up much of a fight when choosing rooms and accepting room charges. They figured wrong on this occasion. The first place we are shown to is a brand new hotel 'opened' just three weeks ago. The first room we are shown has a fantastic view of the Fansipan mountain range beyond and we very nearly accept the 25 dorrar room charge. That bed looks sooo inviting.... We ask if they have any cheaper rooms and are shown to a lower floor and initially we go for the room and it's 20 dorrar a night rate. Only when we closely inspect the bathroom do we see that it's not totally finished and really rather dirty. We decide to walk out and grab our passports back from reception. We can't believe that they would show us to such a crappy room and expect us to accept it. By now the first waves of tired dizziness are descending on us as we lug our backpacks around the town searching for somewhere to take us in. We eventually settle for a room on the 5th floor of a rapidly declining hotel just across the road for an incredible 7 dorrar a night. We are asleep by 09.15. We get up slightly groggily at 1300hrs and go down for breakfast (or is it lunch?). A good feed later (Stu has omelette and Amy some sort of noodles I think) we hire a car and driver for the afternoon for a fee of 14 dorrar. I'm not sure if we should have got a discount after listening to Boney M for several hours but we hardly noticed as our attention was once more drawn to the beautiful surroundings. Rice paddies in the foreground with huge green mountains in the background (see photos). We get to see the valley in which Dien Bien Phu lies (Tam Tom pass or something, the famous site of major Vietnamese victory over the evil French colonists) and go for a walk up to a nice waterfall and another to the top of a very very windy hill with a little pagoda on the top. We get back to Sapa and go for another walk up a big hill and are rewarded with yet further fantastic views. The temperature must be around 20 degrees in the late afternoon. At this stage (5pm) Stu is especially feeling pretty knackered so we decide to go for a quick beer (Halida, v nice) and then food at a local restaurant. Stu has venison and Amy has wild boar, both of which are very tasty. One of the little luxuries we get for our 7 dorrar is a real life fire in our room (can you believe this place?) so it's a little chilly and windy outside and we light the fire in the room. OK, one of the blokes from the hotel lights the fire for us, but you get the idea. By this stage the wind is really howling outside and we are just a tad unfortunate to see all the smoke from the fire billowing back down the chimney and, yes you guessed it, straight into our room. So there we were feeling really tired with smoke coming down the chimney, going past the bed and straight out the door to our room. Along with all the heat. Nevermind we had a good laugh about it and it kept us warm for a while. Wednesday 4th January We wake up (smelling of smoke) and get down for breakfast around 9. The day is beautiful and sunny again so we decide to walk down a monster hill to see a local Hmong tribe 4km away. The Hmong people look lovely in their traditional dress and surprisingly are not too aggressive in their sales tactics. We pass quite a few of them en route selling their jewellery and clothes made from hemp. We get to the bottom and are thinking that the walk has not been too bad. Only when we realise that we've got to go back up do we start to sweat. As we walk through the village (typical scene = chickens and cockerels running wild coughing and spluttering all over us, Vietnamese pot bellied pigs lazing in the sun etc) Stu is stopped from passing by two kids who can't have been more than 5 years old. We eventually make our way back up to Sapa and have lunch (cheese and bread) by the lake. In the afternoon we decide to do something a little crazy and we hire a motorbike. (FERGUS, ARE YOU A PROUD MAN OR WHAT?) Of course, after checking that our insurance covered this little bout of insanity we hired a 125cc (I think although we don't actually know) bike. At first we are just given the keys and left to it. When they see the complete bewilderment on our faces we get some basic instruction like "this is the brake and this is the accelerator". Stu manages to turn the bike around and so we have passed our audition. One quick request for helmets later and we are set loose on the world. Well what great fun we had that afternoon, besides nearly killing ourselves by riding over several precipices and at one stage stopping in the middle of a road on a blind corner we ride around with relative ease. True, Stu has no idea how to change gears but the petrol consumption rate wasn't really that high on our list of priorities. So we arrive at our destination 14km away 7hrs later (only joking, it was more like about 45 mins). We get out and go have a look at some rickety old bridge and at some big rocks in the river and ride back into town, pulling wheelies and doing all sorts of acrobatic tricks (err not really). The evening is spent in the local 'English pub' run by a real Englishman who we chatted to and then we go for dinner up the road. We had more success with the fire in our room that evening and Amy's snot rags burn really well. Thursday the 5th January We have booked a days hiking tour today before our night train (OH NO!) back to Hanoi at 10pm. The weather is beautiful once again though not quite as hot as the 26 degrees it was yesterday. Our tour guide for the day is a lovely little Hmong tribal woman, 17 yrs old, and just married the week before, very full of life which was pleasing to see. We walk about 9km to the village (called Tao Chai or something, will need to look it up) in a group of 4. The other 2 are two pleasant ladies from San Francisco who are very obviously 'together'. Quite how the, shall we say more masculine lady, put up with the non stop questions from the local tribal folk like "Are you married" or "where's your boyfriend" or "why is your hair so short" we'll never know. At one stage I was certain she was just going to shock them by telling them she really liked lady folk more than men folk, really quite hilarious now we look back on it. Anyway, we walk for ages then have a lunch of bread and cheese. By now the clouds have started to build up and the mountains are hardly visible, we really have been lucky with the weather. We trek to some caves and then back to the bus to Sapa. After updating the internet for a while we are ready to get the train back to Hanoi. Tonight we are sharing our 4 person cabin with a slightly odd Australian come South African couple. Joy. Friday 6th January. After putting several T-shirts and 1 pair of socks round me head to muffle the sound from the train (ok just ear plugs) together with blinkers I finally get about 2hrs sleep on the overnight train. YES! We arrive in Hanoi at some stupid time, 5am I think. We turn down the professional looking cab drivers in the belief that they are trying to rip us off by charging us 3 dorrar to get back to the old quarter. So we arrive back in a 'metered' taxi 5 dorrar worse off. Bargain. Nice one Stu. On the way we pass yet another one of those bonkers sights, virtually the entire City is 'exercising' by the lake at 05.30am doing all sorts of funny aerobics come tai chi, some of them are really putting their backs into it. With nothing else better to do we decide to go on a tour of hotels looking for a bargain room, carrying all our stuff round the city in the dark, yet another masterstroke on our behalf. After turning down one place and finding most of the others closed we are eventually chased down by some random bloke on a motorcycle offering us a room for 7 dorrar. Thinking our luck has come in we go for it only to find the rooms on arrival have suddenly doubled in size and price to a monstrous 15 dorrar. Er hello, how about some honesty for a change here please!! So we (Amy) give the guy a heap of abuse (bear in mind that it's about 0630 in the morning) and the room rate is reduced to 10 dorrar, including breakfast and tax, plus we get another free breakfast out of it as well. After the first shower in what feels like days we get to work sorting out stuff and getting ready for our trip to Halong Bay and Laos after that. Laos visas are sorted, the shops are visited for prezzies (in the post guys!) and we update the internet. In the evening we go to see the apparently world famous water puppets which is mildly amusing and we try to keep awake. Dinner follows and bed is most welcome. We have what seems is yet another early start in the morning. All the best, please keep the emails and messages coming, Lots of love Stu & Amy PS only about 8 months to go now, b*****.