So whilst the boys were off doing their 2 day "homestay" trek (which i found out later did not mean staying with a family, but instead meant staying in a guesthouse that was built in the village), I was off exploring the mountains and rice fields of Sapa on my own trek. I was with the french couple from yesterday, a swiss couple and a nice german guy called Armin. We spent the day visiting 3 different minority villages, talking to the village people, finding out how they make rice and their clothes, getting very sweaty walking on slippery paths through the rice fields and being helped along the scary steep bits by a nice woman from the village. We waked through fields of corn, tofu plant, green tea leaves, and also a marijuana field (except it wasnt properly, just like hemp leaves or something, but I still got pretty excited).

Then all 4 of us met up again to take the sleeper train back to Hanoi, but I booked a 4 bed carriage by myself, thought it was empty but then realised throughout the duration of the 14 hour train ride that this was the carriage that the ticket officers used to catch a bit of shuteye when their shift was over. So I spent the entire ride being woken up every hour or so by a different random man coming to sleep in the bed next to mine.