Day 80

Hanoi > Sapa

When I woke up I felt so much better as I had gotten a good night sleep which I so desperately needed. Depsite that, my throat KILLED, and my voice was almost gone. I only had 1 reason to be back in Hanoi which was to get my VISA for Laos as the border crossing I was doing from Sapa required a pre approved VISA for seemingly no good reason except to be a pain in the ass. That wouldn't be the worst thing if it wasn't for the fact that last time I was in Hanoi they were shut for Laos New Year's so I had to make my way back for a 3rd time.

After some breakfast and checking out (I hoped to get my VISA in time to get to Sapa tonight) I ordered a Grab over to the Laos Embassy. Luckily the process was fairly easy, all I had to do was fill out a form and come back later in the day. I ran into Elisa (from Ha Giang loop) at the embassy so we filled in our forms together then headed out. Elisa had something wrong with her ears so we walked to the hospital together then I went on my way to fill the rest of the day.

I needed something for my throat so I went to a pharmacy and found something lozenges that should help, and I hope that the random chemicals aren't gonna end up killing me. After that, I really really wanted a sun hoodie (long sleeve & hooded sports top) that alot of locals wear to protect them from the sun, so I found a market and headed there. The issue is, most clothes were for women and would have been way to small for me, and the few male sun hoodies I could find were super thick and would make an English guy like me melt in the sun. It was also a completely different vibe to most the markets I had been to as no one was trying to sell anything and I had to put in alot of effort to get the sellers attention - completely opposite vibe to the market in Saigon.

I gave up with that and went to find some Banh Mi for lunch at a small café. I chilled there for a while before going to pick up my passport and VISA with Elisa at 3pm. I had booked my bus for 5.30 so had some time to kill, so we ended up going back to the same market I was at to do some shopping for Elisa. After successfully haggling for a couple tops, I said goodbye and went to get my bags before going to the bus office. Because I booked my ticket so last minute, I almost didn't have a ticket but in the last minute it came through confirmed so I hopped on the bus (which was another nice sleeper) towards Sapa.

We stopped once where I quickly ate some noodle soup, and then we eventually arrived in Sapa at 11.30pm. It was well past check in so I had been given instructions of where to sleep but the dude at the hostel was still awake and seemingly quite annoyed at me - oh well. I was so tired I needed a quick shower then slept ASAP.Read more