The Journey to Sapa

We've just arrived in Sapa after a very long frustrating journey. I think its taken us a day in total. We half to fly to Hanoi, get the taxi to thee train station, take the overnight train to a town near Sapa then an hour bus ride to Sapa town. I think its taken us about a day in total.

The journey was a bit stressful as our airline decided to delay our flight but 2.5 hours which meant we were would be very close to missing our train. Then we got a taxi from the airport to the train station. We told our taxi driver we were in a rush and instead of getting us there as quickly as possible he used this information to try to extort more money from us telling us he would make sure we get there is we paid him more money... W@nker. Its things like this that motivate me to learn Vietnamese so I can swear at them. Vietnamese Southerners say that people who live in the north of Vietnam are less friendly and so far from my two trips to Hanoi I'm inclined to believe them. 

Me on the sleeper train

Anyway, we managed to catch a later train to avoid paying the extortioner which was a big hassle to organize over the phone. The rest of the journey was quite nice. We got a lovely sleeper to take us to the town near Sapa. The sleeper was about 10 hours and I slept the whole way.

Once we were in the town we needed to get a bus to Sapa, which is about an hours journey. We were met by the usual touts who offer to take you there who when you ask how much they ask you to name them a price. We were offered a trip there for 300,000 each ($15 each) after telling them it was too expensive and the local bus was a lot cheaper they told us the local bus was the same price. I wasn't it was 29,000 each ($1.30) - the usual lies and annoyances you have to put up with when travelling. We opted for the local bus and not robin hood.

Well, I'm in Sapa now and its lovely.