28th April 2010 We had a bus booked to Hue this afternoon, but that didn’t leave until 1pm, so we had a fairly quiet morning, a lot of which was packing our bags up ready to move on. This was a bit like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole - what with the coats we bought in Sapa, and new clothes we’ve had made in Hoi An, our bags are becoming rather stretched to capacity. It looks like we might have to post some more stuff home once we get back to Saigon. ...
23rd April 2010 It turned out to be a good job that we had bought our North Face coats yesterday, this morning we awoke to torrential rain and a thunderstorm. We were lucky to have done our trek yesterday and that we were going back to Ha Noi later this evening. With such dreadful weather, there was no rush to go out, so we spent a good part of the morning chatting with our Israeli friends Batya and Nir in reception. They have given us some great information and recommendations for Cambodia, Laos and Japan all of which they have visited recently. ...
21st April 2010 Sapa was established as a hill station by the French. The overnight train took us as far as the border town of Lao Cai, right on the Chinese border. We arrived into Lao Cai at 5am. Luckily we had our minibus already booked and were able to push our way through the throngs of drivers offering us rides to Sapa. Once we were on the minibus we had to wait for the next train to arrive and in the meantime fend off the ladies selling Sapa maps and sexy “boom boom” torches amongst other things. ...
22nd April 2010 This morning we’d arranged to go on a guided trek to a couple of hill tribe villages with the Israeli couple we’d met yesterday, who were also staying at our hotel. We had read good things about the trek which the hotel ran, so they had booked the trek for us. At 9am our guide Chi was there ready to take us out. Chi is from the Black H’mong tribe and lives in one of the local villages. She has been giving guided treks for the hotel for about five years and despite never having attended school had an excellent level of English. ...
20th April 2010 The main event for today was to catch the train to Sapa, a small town way up in the mountains in the North of Vietnam. However the train wasn’t until 8:30 this evening, so we had most of the day for getting in some more sight-seeing in Ha Noi. Despite having had a number of days here last week, we still hadn’t made it to Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum whilst it was open - it is only open in the mornings, and not every day of the week. As this was something we wanted to do, we made a point of getting up early this morning and heading straight over there after a quick breakfast. ...
12th April 2010 We were due to catch the train to the mountain town of Sapa tonight, so this morning we checked out of our hotel. The staff were excellent, letting us leave our bags in storage while we explored Hanoi and offering us the use of a room late afternoon so we could shower and freshen up before heading off to the station. Hanoi Station was our first port of call this morning. A dry run to see how far it was from the hotel and to check where we needed to collect our tickets this evening. We quickly ascertained that we would need a taxi tonight with our bags. ...