Sapa

I think the less said about Sapa the better or it'll turn into another rant... Had an overnight train to Sapa, north of Hanoi, and booked into a pretty decent room overlooking some amazing scenery of the Sapa hills and rice paddies. The food as always is a good guage of things to come and consisted of breadrolls and fried eggs, traditional Vietnamese food, I don't think... The town is packed with various tribes-people selling their wares and was quite cool to see, though they were more persistent than when we were in India and would follow you for 20 minutes up and down the street "you buy from me, buy something, why you no buy from me?"... Doesn't really bother me usually but they really grated! The trek was a bit rubbish, was with a rather dry group and the guide was a bit unenthusiastic, stopped about every 200m for a break! not really needed when you're travelling at 0.5km/hr... I was bored out of my tree, I even pretended to walk in slow motion, and was going too fast, seriously!! The scenery was really cool but we were so bored, and for the entire trek we had an entourage of tribes-women hangers-on who tried to sell us stuff every time we stopped... Needless to say I was unimpressed.
Derek who had gone with another group when the group was split in two had the completely opposite experience, fun group, enthusiastic guide, and had a brilliant time, which goes to show how much difference guide and group make to a trek. Anyway can't all be brilliant. Though some of them are and Halong Bay was a redeeming experience :-)