All you need is LOVE!

We are in the northwest of vietnam now
This place call "Sapa"
A small town that famous by the surrouning "breathtaking" mountain view(they love to use this word here)
very close to china border (30km).this will be the last stop in Vietnam before we get into china.

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For some good luck, we finally get rid of the "rain weather" in Vietnam.

Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam
as usual~ after whole night sleep on a very small and uncomfortable sleeping bus(totally didn't look like the pictures show.we got cheated again! ).
They dropped us somewhere outside of the city at 6am in the moring, when we arrived in Hanoi. At the drop off point (suprisingly) a few taxi`s were waiting allready. They know we don't have a choice in this early morning.
(Mark and I were angry about the bus company that they supose to drive us to downtown.not these somewhere of nowhere)
So we did the usual, the same thing we always do in this kind of situations. Walk Away
And just around the corner, lucky us there was a small busstop, with our lonely planet
and the map of hanoi, we find out where we were and where we want to go. So we take the bus and for 6000d (=12NT=0.25euro) we are in our destination.
{in the same day we found out other backpackers pay 100,000d (=200NT=5Euro) to get into downtown}

after the usual hassel of finding a cheap and good hotelroom, we finally had some time 
to look around in Hanoi. first thing it stinks and it`s noisy. 
It looks like every ones`s thumb is glued on the horn and you have to use the horn all the time :(.

We were thinking of taking a cruise in Halong Bay, but the weather forcast wasn`t that good, so we looked around and we decided that we want to go on tuesday, that means
we had to spend 2 days in Hanoi. 

The first day we walked around the lake in down town and lucky us, 
we saw one of the turtle`s in the lake. that is a small miracle if you see
the condition of the lake (full of dirt and trash). It`s pretty rear to see them, 
but we were lucky and saw one stick his head out of the water. 
And the legend says if you see one, it`s mean you will be lucky. 

Second day we decide to go to see the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, 
but unly us, the body was under repair in Russia (so the turtle`s luck 
didn`t work after all). so we had a look in Ho Chi Minh`s palace ( witch
isn`t much more then a baboo house, to stress how simple he lives his life. 

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Halong Bay

The weather was good, so we lucky. after the bustrip to Halong Bay. 
we embarked on the junk. after 2 hours waiting we finally went of to 
have a trip around the small islands. don`t think you are the only one out there. 
litteraly hundreds of boats are floating around. we stoped to take a look at one cave. 
and also we did this with hundreds of other people :(. 

first day was a bit dissapointing, but at night had a drink with some other people 
on the boat (we brought our one drinks :P and illigaly drink them at the top deck). 
Sleeping was pretty ok. 

next day we cruised thru the bays and we get of the boat at one of the main islands. 
finally we stay in a hotel our class worthy :P, nice fancy (expensive) hotel. 
with a very nice view over the bay. we went for a (cold) swim on the beach and had 
a straw over the island. 

next day we take the boat back to halong Bay. 

after we arrived in Hanoi, we picked up our tickets for the night train to Lau Cai. 
we dubble check with another company, because for some suprisingly reason the train
departs at 23.00 instead of 20.40. so we spend our time eating and coffee drinking. 

at 22.00 we moved to the trainstation and find our cabin. 4 sleeper. 
and the train arrives (actualy on time) at 8.00 am in Lau cai, from
where we take the bus to Sapa.

the travel continues, next week china. 
life is great :D
professional travellers
mark & apple

ps. when we are in china. we can start to upload pictures again. due to the wretch software