Its currently 9am and I've accomplished all of my tasks for the day. Its a great feeling... I bought the adapter plug that I needed to buy, and I booked my bus tickets to Hue. I've explored much of what Hanoi's old quarter has to offer, and was relatively unimpressed, so now I'm sitting here writing this blog.

The reason I'm up and have done everything so early is because I returned from Sapa at 5am this morning.

Sapa is a hill station in North Vietnam, surrounded by several small villages housing the Black Hmong Tribe.

I took the night train up there on Tuesday, arriving at the ungodly hour of 5:30am on Wednesday morning. My train journey was ok - I was sleeping in a four person sleeper compartment with 3 Vietnamese people, but I got a good night's sleep so I couldn't complain.

Upon arriving at Lao Cai station, we made the one hour journey to Sapa - I hadn't fully woken up at this time, so this journey remains a hazy memory, between small naps. The hotel itself was fantastic - it was full board, situated on the top of one of Sapa's hills, and I was allocated a room in the "VIP section" - what a privilege!

This first morning, we trekked down to Cat Cat village, a small village inhabited by members of the black Hmong tribe. The walk was beautiful, but I noticed that, like everything else in Vietnam, the area had become incredibly touristy. Local tribal people were rendered pedlars of touristy gifts, and in the town centre, every so often, one would see an Indian or Italian restaurant - hardly indigenous tribal food!!

There's not much more to say about this trek. The weather was fantastic, and I guess I'll let the pictures do the talking.

On the second day, the heavens opened on us, so I had to wear a huge plastic cape, some wellington boots, and carry a staff. The result was that I looked like one of the hobbits from Lord of the Rings! We visited another village, and some more waterfalls, and there was a strange mist around Sapa, meaning that we could only see a couple of metres in front of us. The whole effect rendered the scenery both mysterious and beautiful. Aside from tourism, the local's people's other industry is farming, and we passed several paddy fields and other crops en route.

This evening, we were to stay in a village home, and it was a unique experience to say the least. Amenities included a squat toilet, a barrel of cold water and a jug for the shower, and the resident dogs, chickens and the occassional buffalo wandering onto our land. All the food was cooked on a small fire, and surprisingly, it was all delicious. During dinner, our tour guide and host family introduced us to "happy water" otherwise known as rice liquor - and after 7-8 shots of this, the evening was always likely to be raucous. After dinner, we were treated to the sight of our drunken tour guide dancing to both Boney M and some Euro Dance music - it was a sight to behold.

Eventually, we retired to bed - I say bed, but the bed consisted of a thin mattress on the floor, covered with an even thinner sheet. I didn't sleep a wink, largely due to the incessant sounds of crickets croaking, and when the roosters crowed at 5:30am, I got out of bed, and read a book for the whole morning.

This final day was more of the same - it continued to rain, we trekked through some more of the hillside, and returned to the hotel in the afternoon, ready to have dinner and get back on the train.

The three days in Sapa was a big change from the noise and big lights of Hanoi, and was also very different to the night at sea in Halong Bay. The night in a village home was a once in a lifetime experience, and the place itself was beautiful.