After a long night train ride in more or less comfortable hard sleepers we arrived at 4am this morning in Hanoi. The city was absolutely dead and after some difficulty we managed to find a hotel room. The usual difficulties: "Hey you!! You need hotel? Cheap cheap, only 8 $ per night and free internet and breakfast and bicycles and everything...!!" Ok we go there, walk our lungs out, arrive and what do we get? "Oh solly, no cheap loom anymole, only loom fol 15$! Wanna see?" BASTARDI!!! But we managed and woke up a few hours later in another world. The sleepy city turned straight into a bustling nightmare of cars, bicyles, motorbikes, streetvendors and shops. But it's wonderful after the days up in the Sapa mountains and a shoppers paradise. We spent the day eating Vietnamese delicasses (frog, pigeon,...) at the Dinh Lang Thuy Da Restaurant overlooking the lake in the Old Quarter of Hanoi and shopping for silk, DVDs,... Right now we are in a bustlig internet cafe surrounded by Vietnamese kids playing online internet games. You can't imagine the noise :-)

Sapa was nice, even though very touristy. We spent New Year's Eve in a restaurant celebrating with a bunch of drunk Vietnamese.



We danced with them to Modern Talking, drank Vietnamese wine (not the best in the world ;-) and had a great time! On the 1st and 2nd we did a trekking tour to some nearby mountain tribe villages of Mong and Red Zar people. The nature was beautiful, rice terraces as far as you can see surrounded by steep mountains.



And the people we stayed with were incredibly nice. We had dinner with a Mong family and played cards with their kids after. Good times. Only the tribes women started to get on our nerves trying to sell something on every house we passed on our tour.



Tomorrow we will continue our way to Halong Bay!