Well the thunderstorm didn't clear the air and we still have lots fog and low cloud everywhere; the sun isn't trying to make an appearance!
It's cold and damp as well so weather isn't making anyone feel happy and lively! It's a coffee, cake and duvet kind of day!

After breakfast we done a bit of shopping around for north face knock offs and then bumped into Chris and Oli and joined them for the trek down to the Cat Cat village, it was around 2km down the hill from the main town.

Even though we couldn't see down over the mountains due to the thick fog it was a nice walk, it felt like home! We reached the village, of course we had to buy a ticket to get in! I think it's the only way they make money because nobody buys the things that the tribes women make. It was a big loop through the village and rice paddie fields. We started at the traditional houses which reminded us a little of st fagons and the Victorian age. Their drainage system is bamboo stalls cut in half so that the water runs down into a big spoon and when it fills up it drops the water down apparently into the rice paddies but I don't know how that works.
If the weather was nice I think it would have all looked so beautiful. We found the flower waterfall which we realised half of it was man made as the water was coming through bamboo stalks, it was all very pretty though with the water hydropower plant and a cute bridge going over the waterfalls. A bunch of Vietnamese were making it so obvious that they were trying to take our photo so we all got up and left, walked through the jungle and on the side of a mountain and crossed a suspension bridge that bounced and wasn't at all very stable! I was basically running over it because Scott was wobbling it on purpose and the steep drop below wasn't looking to pleasant!

We stopped for lunch at a make shift restaurant for some Pho Bo, my beef was pure fat so when the guy wasn't looking I was throwing it into the grass, sitting outside was okay for the first 10-15 minutes but then we all got freezing from sitting around for too long.

We didn't think that we had been walking around the village for that long until the walk up when it started to get darker and the fog set in even more! It was Oli and Chris last day so we went to a bar to play pool and have a beer. The bar stunk of urinals though so it wasn't the most pleasant in the beginning, soon you get used to it and don't recognise it. BOFF!

We took a stroll back and all met for food around 7.30 and Caroline tagged along (we met her at the elephant project in Cambodia) food was lovely and they had an open fire on a open caldron inside; it's one you have as a garden ornament in Britain, I say ornament because the weather is never nice enough for us to sit in the garden after dark and have a good log fire going.
Absolutely shattered by 10pm but Scott got beaten at pool earlier and was adamant to win a game so we went to another bar and played, it was more like a crack den, taporling hanging from the ceiling and scary looking creatures painted on the wall, I was happy to go home soon because I was falling asleep on the chair.
Chris and Oli needed to aswell because they had a bus at 7am tomorrow from Sapa, cutting it super fine as the bus takes 6hours to get to Hanoi which means they will arrive (if the bus is on time, so not on Asia time) at 1.30pm, their flight home from Hanoi is at 4.30pm and the airport is 25km from the main city! Silly lads.

We didn't end up getting to bed until midnight and we have to get up at 6am tomorrow to go out for our trek and check out of the hotel because there isn't any room for us apparently! So into hotel number two today, 'Elysian Sapa Hotel'!