Our last section on the way to north Vietnam was a 13 hour bus journey on the Sinh Cafe open tour bus from Hue. This time we got the worst beds on the bus, on top of the toilet, which meant the seat of the bed could not be raised to be seated properly. In the end we managed to sleep quite a bit, with only one food stop at a road side place, where they did the now common scam of bringing you whatever food they had (regardless of what we ordered) and then apologising and offering to change it (by which time it was too late), so we had to eat and pay for the beef rice which we did not order. 
Hanoi 

We arrived in Hanoi at about 6:30am in the north part of the old quarter. The usual crowd of local touts trying to find some fresh unsuspecting tourists to come to their hotel was there ready to pounce. By this time we kind of had mastered the art of ignoring them, but it is not easy, pretty much impossible. So I followed this guy to his hotel through some narrow streets full of people selling meat  and vegetables on the floor. We decided the hotels and the area were not very nice and a bit far from the centre, so we got a taxi to an area closer to the centre (centre of the old quarter), and got ripped off in the process by a rigged taxi metre (50k dong was more than twice of what it should have been). After looking around the area at about four hotels, we settled for the New Prince, which was a whole 20usd but a great room with nice bathroom. So we had a nice shower and a rest after the long bus ride, and then went out for breakfast and to look around the city. 

We met up with Janusz again, and we started trying to work out a plan to go to Sapa and Halong Bay. The Old Quarter of Hanoi is quite an exciting area, with lots of little streets full of people, motorbikes, shops, restaurants, and not as many tourists as you might expect. It is far from the quiet streets of Hoi An, but it is much more charming than Sai Gon or Hue, and wherever you look towards you will see something interesting. 

We  were wandering around Hoan Kiem lake (which is in the middle of the old quarter) and going across the lovely red wooden bridge we bumped into Rakel again. Here we met Ramon, another Catalan who also knew Janusz from their bus journey to Hanoi (all the tourists are going to all the same places and you keep on bumping into people over and over). We kept on wandering the streets where every other street specialised on selling something different... bags, shoes, paintings, sunglasses, motorbike spare parts, underwear, etc... and after deciding what our plan was for Sapa and Halong Bay, we walked to the train station to buy our tickets on the overnight train to Sapa. 

The next day we met with Rakel and Ramon for breakfast and then went to visit the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. This was quite incredible, the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh (the father of communist independant Vietnam) was kept in a glass box guarded by military inside the mausoleum building. People are allowed to visit without any cameras, walking continuously at a slow pace in a perfect line, and with both hands on the sides. The body is perfectly preserved, and you can  see every little wrinkle, hair and vein. That day we also visited the Temple of Literature, which was a beautiful chinese type courtyard temple built as a Confusian education establishment. Our train to Sapa was that very same night, so we just walked around the streets, talking and eating until it was time for our train at about 10pm. 

Sapa 
We went to Sapa with Ramon, just to stay one night at the village, with two nights on the train journeys. The trip was first the overnight train to Lao Cai, and then a one hour bus ride to Sapa. We only got soft seat places on the train because we got the tickets the day before (all the sleeping beds were booked), so we hardly slept at all on the 8 hour trip. On top of that, a group of Vietnamese people on our carriage decided to have a midnight party, and were drinking, eating and making a lot of noise. We arrived in Lao Cai at about 6am, and a young boy stuck to us offering transportation to Sapa. He wanted 100k dong per person (we knew the normal price should be more like 30k dong) so we ignored him. We got to the carpark outside the station, by which time the boy was still following us and asking for 50k dong. Lorena then found a minibus ready to go that asked us for 30k dong, so we decided to go with them. At this time the little boy started screaming at us and telling us not to get on, and shutting the minibus door to stop us from getting in. We eventually got on the minibus rather forcefully, and the boy dissappeared after screaming a bit more at the minibus driver. About one minute later he came back with a large metal tube screaming more at us and the driver. The driver finally came out and shouted a load of things at the boy and got him to shut up and leave. 
We got to Sapa at about 7:30, and the minivan people had a hotel there and we got a really nice and cheap room with a great view over the valley, so we stayed there. That same morning we went with the hotel van to the Silver waterfalls (Thac Bac), which were about one hour drive up the mountains, and also went to the foot  of the Fansipan (3145m) which is the highest peak in Vietnam. We could not see much of the mountains though, because the mist was very thick all over. We also had some sticky rice, which is cooked inside a bamboo stick. 

Sapa is a small village on the mountains on the north of Hanoi, near the border with China, with a beautiful scenery tucked between the mountains and the steep valleys and rivers, and full of amazing rice plantation terraces that look like contour lines on a topography map. The area is home to many native tribes that live in small villages dotted around the place, whose main source of income must be rice and tourism. 

In the afternoon that day we went for a walk down to the tribal village of Cat Cat which has stone paths that take you through all the rice plantations and a beautiful river. It was about a three hour walk altogether so we got back quite tired especially after going up hill back to Sapa and refusing to go on the motorbike taxis to go back. The village of Sapa itself is not of too much interest, just full of hotels, restaurants and  tour agencies, but it also has some nice street markets and many H'mong and Dzay people in the street selling their handicrafts. It was a bit shocking to see the old ladies offering their woven bags, and then following with..."marihuana, hashish, opio???"... if you were not interested in their crafts (this happened many times with some very old women). 

The second day we planned to go trekking a bit further down the valleys to the villages of Lao Chai and Ta Van, but at about 9am the rain was falling hard and the mist covered the whole place with no visibility at all. So we sat at a little cafe by the balcony having breakfast and coffees watching the rain. At about 10am the weather cleared and the sun came out, so we started walking down the road. We decided to go on our own without any guides, but as we left the village, we had about five H'mong ladies following us offering to take us to their village (they didn't offer drugs this time) but we told them we were not going to buy anything so they slowly left us alone, except Yu (one lady who stuck to us  the whole way and became our personal guide). Yu's english was not the best, but it was amazing how much we could communicate with her. We walked with her all the way down the mountain side and across the river past the area of Y Linh Ho village, and continued along the river towards Lao Chai. The landscape with all the rice fields was just incredible, and the heat was pretty intense, but we kept on going through the sun for about 4 hours (10-12 km) through Lao Chai and up to Ta Van, where we had some lunch with Yu in a little house, and met her daughter and her grand daughter. We then spent about 100k dong in handicrafts (at slightly inflated prices in view of all the time she spent with us) from Yu, and then got on some motorbike taxis to make our way back to Sapa. That same afternoon we had to take the minivan back to Lao Cai and the sleeper train back to Sapa... this time we did have soft sleeper places, so we had a much better sleep, and got back to Hanoi at about 5am. Unfortunately our hotel was still closed,  so we had to wonder around the streets, and got into the nearby St.Joseph's cathedral, where they were in morning mass. At 6am we managed to get into our hotel room for a bit more sleep. That day we just relaxed, met up with Rakel, Ramon and Janusz and watched the Monaco Grand Prix, and had some dinner, where Rakel and Janusz had bit of a scuffle resulting on Janusz walking away and saying goodbye (Rakel did not say bye to him though). 

Halong Bay 
After a night sleep in Hanoi, we left on our two night tour with Ocean Tours (one night on the private island, one night on the boat). We were still pretty knackered from our two day trekking trip around Sapa, so all we wanted was to lazy around and take some sun. It was a three hour van trip to Halong city, where we got on to the sleeping junk (boat) with a group of about 20 people. Halong Bay is a Unesco world heritage site and it is absolutely amazing, with huge rock islands jetting out of the sea all over the place, and a bright green smooth water surrounding it all (not sure  if the green is algae green or toxic waste green) with hundreds of tourist boats by the docks waiting to go in and out. We first cruised on the boat through the many islands (there are more than 2000 islands in Halong Bay) to a quiet lagoon for a bit of kayaking. We went with a group of about six kayaks through the rocks, caves and lagoons for about one hour and then had a nice swim by the boat. 
We then had to make it to the private island going through more amazing seascape, and even catching the sunset on the way. But the two hour boat trip was not calm all the way, and the sea got pretty rough making most of us a bit sea sick. We got to the island in the dark, and got shown to our rustic bamboo bungalows. We had a quick shower and ready for dinner at the main building. Everything seemed so calm and quiet, with only our group of 12-15 people with 6 bungalows and the main building with lounge, dining room and pool table right in front of our small private beach hidden away in the rocks. We had  a nice meal and then some drinks, chatting with a group of crazy irish and australian girls and two really nice canadian guys. 

The next day we woke up for breakfast and got ready for a morning of doing nothing by the beach. We just relaxed in the sun all morning and had a little swim. After lunch we had to get back on the boat going through another head spinning rough patch, we reached the peaceful waters of Halong Bay. We had another relaxing swim and then went to the sleeping area where lots of boats gathered in the same area. The sunset here was just breathtaking, with all the boats floating among the islands and the calm water. After breakfast on the boat we went to visit the 'Amazing Cave' (this was the name of the cave), and it was amazing... well, it was a very large cave full of strange rock formations and colourful lights. 
We got back to Hanoi at about 4pm for our last night in Vietnam, and ready to get our flight to Laos the next morning..