Booked the tickets for Sapa yesterday, and so the bus leaves today at about 6, we are getting picked up from the hostel and then taken to the bus station before getting a 12 hour night bus to Sapa. I can safely say that I am not looking forward to a 12 hour bus journey, trains are one thing, but a bus, on these roads, that is an entirely different matter. So I spend most of the day mentally preparing myself for the potential disaster that may ensue. Before it is ...

Another easy morning, just the usual weasel coffee and some food from the street rather than my free breakfast. It is Vietnamese Woman's Day today and so I buy the girls in the hostel some breakfast as a treat. It is a big deal this day, everywhere you go there are flowers available to buy. Apparently today women pay for nothing and would be admirers shower them with gifts, some that are often hard to get in Vietnam. If you ask me it looks like some of the woman ...

Today I relax. The hot weather really does zap me here. Even when I go out without a bag I am still struggling. I just chat to the girls in the hostel. I am trying to decide if I am going to go to Sapa. It is a rural town to the north of Hanoi, it is quite expensive, but everyone I have spoken to in the hostel says its worth it! You can book a number of options, but the one that interests me is the 3 day trek, 2 nights, of course this is also the most expensive, ...

Today is the day! Weasel coffee day! Alex says she has a place that she goes to everyday, so I decide to go with her and hit it up. So, weasel coffee, these are coffee beans that have been eaten by a weasel, it can't digest them, but it breaks down the coffee bean slightly, this means that it does not need to be roasted as much, and so should preserve the flavour better. So in short, weasel s***! I hope it is not sweet like the normal Vietnamese coffee. I get min...

So I get up nice and early, 5.30, to hopefully get a glimpse of a lovely morning sunrise. I am disappointed to report that instead of a sunrise, I was greeted with a lovely cloudy sky. It just got brighter as the morning went on, but no big burning ball in the sky! I'm pretty gutted, but being up so early does allow me to see how the locals live in the morning. There are a lot of tour boats anchored up, and so there starts to appear little boats selling stuff. Of...