Sapa

June 9

We caught the overnight train from Hanoi to Sapa, North West Vietnam, last night -arrived at 7am this morning. 10 hour trip (left at 10pm last night) - comfy beds. Although neither of us slept that well, as every now & then the carriages would jolt around.

Sapa has very beautiful scenery of mountains surrounded by mist & deep valleys with terraces of rice fields disappering into the fog. Very different to any of the other scenery we've seen on our travels.

We've also seen a few of the local hilltribe members around the town - who dress in beautiful hand embroided outfits.
Tomorrow we are going on a 13km walk to see 2 of the local hilltribes - lunch is provided, we then travel back to our motel by jeep. SO that will be good fun. Then catch night train back to Hanoi & arrive at 6am on Sun 11th.

Tonight we're planning to go to one of the local pub's to watch the World Cup Soccer Opening Ceremony. Soccer is very popular in Asia - a lot of buzz & advertising surrounding World Cup.

Hanoi and Blog Probs

We're now in Hanoi, and are not entirely sure if the blog is working. We can't access the site itself, but seem to be able to post, so for now we'll keep doing so. Would appreciate it if anyone out there with our email addresses could send us an email to say whether or not they can see the blog.... Well I guess if you are reading this than you can reach it ! So send us an email to say so. For now we cant read your comments, since we cant see the blog itself.

Hanoi is great. Quite european ( I guess French colonial) in layout. There seems to be more outward signs of wealth than in other parts of Vietnam we've visited. Many beautiful parks, monuments and the like, which I guess you would expect in a communist capital. The youths seem to be very up with the fashions. Last night saw many young Hanoians zooming around in ultrytrendy clothes, on very souped-up vespas and other expensive looking scooters! A cool site.

We're only here for the day, as tonight we catch an overnight train to Sapa, in the hills of NorthEastern Vietnam. We will return to Hanoi on the 11th June for a longer stay.

Hoi An, Vietnam

June 4 - June 8