Arrived in LaoCai at 7.30am. Stored my bag at the train station (10,000 Dong~USD$0.50), had breakfast (20,000 Dong~USD$1)

and got a minivan (35,000 Dong ~USD$1.7) to Sapa. Sapa is just around 35km away from LaoCai. Sapa is a very colorful town with a few ethnic minority groups such as the Hmong, Dai and Tay.

It’s very misty up in Sapa.

Church

BBQ piglet

Lake

Hmong people discussing about business

Terraced paddy field

Got back to LaoCai at 2pm and got on a motorbike taxi to the Vietnam-China border which is 3km away from the train station.

Leaving Vietnam

Crossed the border to the border town, HeKou.

Bought a 8pm bus ticket (137Yuan ~USD$20, 450km, 9 hours) from HeKou to Kunming.

I almost forgot that the time in China is an hour ahead of Vietnam, luckily there were still some time left when I thought about that. The sleeper bus left at 8pm sharp and was full. China has a first class infrastructure, the roads are much better than Vietnam and many other South East Asian countries. After spending the past few weeks on slow buses going on windy, narrow and bumpy roads, the bus ride to Kunming felt quite different. The bus went pretty fast. Instead of going around the mountains, there are many tunnels through the mountains and it’s a 4 lane highway so the ride was more comfortable.