From Halong Bay, we moved on to Sapa, a mountain town near to the Chinese border. It’s a long way getting to Sapa – a seven-hour overnight train ride from Hanoi plus an hour’s bus ride – but I think it’s worth going there for a reprieve from Hanoi. Travel light as the sleeper cabins are tiny and won’t have space for you to store huge ass backpacks or luggage.

The low clouds, rolling green hills and padi fields in Sapa

Women from the minority tribes mill around the streets and try to chat up tourists in a bid to get them to buy their handicraft. Be prepared to be asked these two questions all the time, “Where are you from? What’s your name?” After awhile, my friend and I got tired of answering the same question all the time and decided to ignore the questions altogether. Yes, it was somewhat rude, but really, it gets annoying after awhile.

We were told by our guide that boys have to help out with chores like the herding of buffalo once they reach the age of about four or five.

Ethnic wear for sale

We saw many children milling around instead of attending school, which just perpetuates the poverty cycle.

A lovely natural playground for the children

The waterfall at Cat Cat village

This dog’s owners must have a warped sense of humour

An aerial view of Sapa town – it almost looks like a European village

As we had time to spare before the scheduled leaving time on our last day, we got our guide to take us to some waterfalls nearby for an extra USD20 each. As it had just rained the night before, the Love Waterfall was especially lovely! My friend and I love waterfalls and we were delighted to see the waterfall.

The second waterfall we were brought to was called Silver Waterfall, which was even nicer with its four split levels.

At Sapa we decided to indulge ourselves and stayed at the Victoria hotel which is the most expensive hotel there. We paid about USD150 per night for the room.

I wished we had stayed longer in Sapa so we could have time to hike up Mount Fansipan which is the highest point in Vietnam at 3143m. But we only stayed two nights in the hotel and the other two nights were spent on the train. If I had known Halong Bay would be so boring, I’d would have stayed one less night in there and an extra night in Sapa instead.