After all the adventure and exploration of the past few days we decided to take a day off, sleep in till whenever we fancy and decide on what to do next and when to move on etc… We figured that we are quickly running out of time to try and fit in everything we want but we hadn’t quite finished with northern Vietnam and all its hilly wonders, amazing rural life and stunning views so we decided to head north east to Bac Ha the next day for the Bac Ha Sunday hill tribe market, the biggest market in the area… Now I think I’ve suffered my fair share of south east Asian markets recently but this one promised not only tat and trinkets but also a good helping of culture, and based on that presumption we packed up and booked a bus for the next morning. We didn’t really do anything else with our day except eat but it was a good day none the less. Our bus arrived at 7:30 so we were up and packed and of course had time to squeeze a super sweet super strong Vietnamese coffee down our necks before hopping aboard our mini bus and hitting the road for Lao Cai the main transport hub to the far north where we wandered to a restaurant and waited for a while for a local bus, while a small child from the shop next door stood about 6 feet away and stared at me for the entire time, the lad bareley blinked! I think it was probably the nose ring…This is where the fun began, we had been told it was about a 2 hour trip and I had deduced from the map that the roads weren’t going to be the best roads we have ever been on, what’s more it was local bus for less than $3 or private tour bus for $40 so in the interest of budgeting we went with the non air-con local bus… 4 of the most gruelling, hot and cramped hours later we arrived at Bac Ha, the ride was less like a bus ride and more like a really bad Thai massage by the world strongest man in a sauna! At times the bus actually drove along a train track, and at others along roads that couldn’t be any worse if they had recently been bombed but we were there and a short stomp found us nicely in a coll clean hotel room. It had taken us 8 hardcore hours to get there and we were exhausted but determined not to let that stop us we rented a moped for a few hours and went for an explore. Bac Ha is a small town set in similar if not as spectacular surroundings as Sapa, but it has a lot more of a rural feel to it even in the town centre there was the occasional pony and trap plodding by and lots of the houses where of wattle and daub type construction with wooden frames and cracked mud walls. Time was getting on and the light was fading so we didn’t go too far, just far enough to get a feel for the place and see the beautiful surrounding country side then back to town for a… Hot chocolate, its not as cool in Bac Ha as it was in Sapa but come the evening its just cool enough. We didn’t much further than that because we were both hot, tired and smelly also we wanted to be up early for the market in the morning…