Sapa and Hanoi

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Our bus ride back from Halong City was one huge debate as to whether to travel to Sapa or not that evening. We were continuously changing our minds, one minute we were going, the next we weren't! We had 4 days before our flight so to get an overnight train to spend one night in Sapa and then travel back the following night seemed a bit rushed. We finally made the decision not to go.... 4 hours later we were sat in the train station. 
It was definitely worth the effort. Although very touristy, Sapa was gorgeous, valley upon valley of rice terraces high up in the mountains with surrounding mountains poking up through the clouds everywhere you looked. With only 2 days to see the area we booked onto a trek for 9am (after arriving only an hour earlier and suffering from lack of sleep).! The "trek" wasn't quite what we expected, it was more of a casual (but very muddy) walk around the countryside and local tribal villages accompanied by many women kitted out in their tribal dress trying to sell you gifts. Nonetheless it was still a great day out, the scenery was amazing and the villages were so pretty with puppies and chicks running around everywhere! 

In the short space of time between arriving and starting the walk we also had a mad panic buy of North Face jackets to keep us warm, they were definitely needed! The rest of our time in Sapa we spent exploring the town and it's shops and again drank a lot of hot chocolate! 

We arrived back to Hanoi at 4am and spent an hour or so in a little cafe waiting for a more suitable time to try and find a place to stay! We finally gave in at about half 5 and headed into the city to find somewhere that was open! We luckily found a place and managed to get a room where we then slept for a few hours to catch up on some much needed sleep! 

Hanoi is a nice city but is just a city, we enjoyed our time there but wouldn't have wanted to spend any longer. There are some great shops which we spent our days wondering around and there was also a pretty cool night market which we really enjoyed and managed to bag ourselves a few bargains! We also found a brilliant little cafe on a small road on the outskirts of the main part of the city. For one dollar you could pick as many dishes from a choice of about 10 to have on top of a huge plate of rice. It was the biggest portion of food you will ever find anywhere and was extremely tasty! We did however get a bit worried that one of the dishes rikki picked was dog meat... He couldn't work out what meat it was and said it didn't taste familiar.... Bleughh..... Don't tell Molly! 

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