Day 8 - Travelogues, Sapa, Vietnam

By far my most favourite place on our backpacking trip... we reached Lao Cai at 4:30 AM and caught a taxi for 30,000 dong each (about $3)... i think it took us about an hour to get to the picturesque mountain village of Sapa. We knew it'd be cold there but the rain greeted us as soon as we got there...! so at 6:30 am, in this breath taking place we alighted and looked for accomodation... all of us were charged up with the fresh mountain air and started hunting for places... we got something for $12 ($3 each) and since the hotel guys readily agreed, we knew that we'd definitely get a better deal.. and sure enough we managed a deal for 5 frickin dollars TOTAL that's $1.25 per head!!!!!!! in a gorgeous hotel called sapa twilight with hot water, a kitchen we could use for free (of course the ingredients had to be ours), heater pads to keep the beds nice and warm and free internet in an empty hotel!!!!!!

as soon as we got in we ordered hot chocolate... there's something about sitting in the mountains with the clouds coming in through the window to greet you and a mug of hot chocolate in your hands! ooooooooo mama.. orgasmic!

since it was raining, we spent the afternoon indoors and took off in the evening to go and see sapa's waterfall.. we rented bikes and hopped on... even though I was disappointed with their waterfall whcih was more a gushing mountain stream than a waterfall, the entire journey was so beautiful that I have absolutely no complaints...

finished early and had an early dinner... now we were really excited that we were saving money on accomodation and thought that we could treat ourselves to a slightly expensive meal (i.e. stuff ourselves with food)... unfortunatley... sapa's restaurants dint match the economy of the hotel rooms! every restaurant was really expensive!

that night when we sat to budget... we realized that we'd have to stay in sapa for 3 days more.. simply coz staying in sapa would help us with finances coz the hotel rates were so cheap!

wow.. we actually stayed in sapa for 4 days coz our room rent was peanuts! i still get stunned by our move.. but it was awesome

Day 7 - Travelogues - Cat Ba Island

This was the second day of our 2 day package tour of Halong Bay...it's a total waste to stay overnight on Cat Ba Island if you take a 2 day package... all we did on Cat Ba was sleep! Its a shame actually coz the place looked really pretty...
breakfast was provided by the tour agency... entertainment wasn't part of the itenarary but we got it free... there was this random dude... half indian, half jamaican or something.. drunk at 8 AM... he kept dancing in the middle of the road, teaching kids how to run, randomly walking up to people and shaking their hands.. all sorts of weird things... he drank throughout the 6 hour journey... which was a good thing.. coz if he wasn't drinking he'd be bugging us... the weirdo was so drunk he bit the guide!!!
anyway.. enough about him.. day 2 was pretty much a waste.. but the boat ride through halong bay is worth it all...
we got back to hanoi and immediately rushed to the station to catch a train to lao cai and go onto sapa... this time round we had a luxurious 4 seater coupe and it was so pretty.. we loaded up on bread, cheese and beer for the journey and took off...
we got into the compartment and couldn't get enough of it.. cute little train with a cute lil compartment...