We decided to book a tour to Sapa for the following day and ended up deciding on a 4 night 3 day tour. Our tour included all travel, meals, accomodation as well as the daytours for an average of $25 a day. 

We left Hanoi on Friday 1st January at 9pm on a sleeper bus to Lao Cai, which was due to arrive at around 5am the next morning. We were supposed to be in a higher class sleeper but due to our late booking we could only a seat in a lower class. However, being our first sleeper train ride it was fantastic, definately better than the sleeper buses we have taken all the way up the coast of Vietnam. We were placed in a cabin with another two older gentlemen who were also doing a three day trekking trip, and had fun asking about our 'devices' we had, that is, our music and video players. 

We arrived at 5am and if it wasnt for Ben going for a walk and noticing the whole carriage was empty we may have kept on sleeping! There was no flick of the lights, staff or sound to announce out arrival. We  were met at the station by the staff from the Sapa Summit Hotel, who were conducting our tour for the next three days. 

At 9am we headed off for our first day of exploring. The tour, led by Li, a local Hmong girl, took us to Cat Cat, Sin Chai village where we got to see the local black H'mong people weaving and embroidering their clothes. It was just amazing, and we didnt even go in Summer when the rice terraces are at their best, but in winter when the fields are brown. The views were stunning, and it was interesting to see how the people lived. It was also an eye opener to see how families were living in wooden huts with little furnishings, but yet were still connected with mobile phones and satellites stuck onto the sides of their houses. Also, the amount of pigs roaming around, many with little piglets, was so cute! We had not really seen many pigs in the south at all, rather, the south tends to have mostly Buffalo. We also got to trek to a nice cascading waterfall, the first I have seen in Vietnam so far. 

The second day  was a Sunday, so we had the opportunity to go and see the famous Bac Ha Market. Supposedly it is the biggest and most colourful market in all of North West Vietnam. Many ethnic minority people living in the surrounding mountains around the town travel to the weekly market, making it one of the biggest we have seen so far. It was great to see, especially as so many were wearing their beautiful traditional clothes. We also stopped and had a walk around the flower H'mong Village. We stopped about 20 minutes after leaving the market, and walked along a lovely paved laneway between many of the houses. Our guide then wanted to show us inside one of the houses, so he proceeded to look for a house where someone was home, seeing as so many were at the market for the day. We came across a house with three small kids playing out the front, all under 10 and home alone. 30,000 Dong later we were in, and it was derfinately not what I expected! There was a loft for storing food, a main room for sleeping (the three kids shared a bed) and then a kitchen on the side, with two stoves, one for the animals food, one for the family meals. 

We headed out the back way and walked through some rice fields, where I finally got a chance to get a picture of a Vietnamse pony! I have seen a few so far, including some paints and pally's, and I even got a picture of one with a pack saddle on it (for Mel). They are quite cute, they look like an old shaggy bombproof kids pony from back home, mostly bays, and are not as solid as I expected them to be! 

We were supposed to spend one night at a homestay, but our agent at the Sapa Summit hotel must have forgotten, and we didnt really feel the need to make up a fuss. We figured that sharing a lodge in a village with another 10 tourists probably wasnt going to be really all that authentic. 

Our last day was by far the best for me. Our guide led us on a hike to Muong Hoa Valley (12kms all up) and made our other trekk on the first day pale in comparison. The views were more stunning and the walk more intersesting as we got to pick our way around the mountainside through rice terraces, along small trails, and over creeks. We were heading to Ylinhho village (another black H'mong tribe) with a stop for lunch on the Muong Hoa River on the way. From our hotel in Sapa I was greeted, along with our guide, by a small Vietnamese girl called Bahn. She tailed me for the entire 12km trek, making small talk and creating fantastic little grass models of horses and hearts for me. Of course, when we got to our lunch stop she produced a surprisingly large collection of wares for sale, considering I had not noticed her carrying much from the start. Unfortunately I literally had no money, but Ben, whose own little follower was trying the to sell him her own little collection, managed to buy an item off each of them. I especially liked the small black handbag that I couldnt afford (100,000 she started at) but Ben managed to haggle her down to 40,000, which, probably was still a good deal for her as she jumped pretty quick at the price, and even gave us a free necklace each. She was such a lovely  girl, could speak enough English to have a conversation, and she was not too in our face which was nice for a change. 

We headed back on the 9pm train back to sapa, in our first class sleeper cabin with Plasma TV... complete with the thumping rail noises which were surprisingly louder than the first lower class sleeper cabin. Go figure. We got to Hanoi at 5.30am and had 2 hours to have a slow breakfast before we were picked up for our trip to Halong Bay at 7.30am. The first half of this trip was fantastic. After a 3 hour drive to Halong City we got straight onto our boat and got to enjoy a fantastic meal of seafood, meat dishes and fruit, followed by a chance to laze around on the deckchairs on the top deckof the boat as we sailed through all the limestone karsts jutting out of the water. 

That evening we got a chance to jump into a kayak and head under some of the limestone karsts themselves to get to monkey island, which, indeed, had monkeys! We could Kayak within 10 metres of the stone ledges and watch the monkeys playing and  running around! That night was great, Ben and I spent it playing a game of poker with a few New Zealanders, using broken toothpicks and bottle caps as chips, followed by a game of Grass, an interesting game played with cards where your aim is to earn the most money you can by selling drugs. Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to that group the following day as they were only participating in a one day tour. We were heading to Cat Ba Island for some bike riding and a stay in one of the hotels there. Admittedly, the bike riding was fantastic, we got to head along a quiet road through a local village high five-ing the kids as they were leaving school. However, I would recommend that if you ever plan on doing the Halong Bay tour with a stay at Cat Ba island in winter, you might be better trying to find a tour that didnt stop at the island. Because it was wet and cold we didnt go swimming on monkey island, so we were stuck at the hotel most of the time, with not much entertainment in town, and all our meals were paid for  at the hotel. Perhaps doing the tour on our own devices we could have eaten at other places at least. Regardless, I still enjoyed the chance to have a soak in the extra big bath and watch some DVD's 😉 

We headed back to Hanoi after our last meal on the junk, and are about to start planning our trip into Laos. It appears were looking at a 22 hour bus ride across the border. Wish us Luck!.