day 247, Sapa

With my second blanket I had a toasty warm sleep till my alarm did it’s job. Sorted ourselves out, got petrol, loaded up the bikes and set off for Sapa! Thank fuck it had stopped raining and had even started to warm up a bit. After about an hour most of my wet things were dry and I was starting to feel my feet again. Michael’s bike had a bit of a jitter though it went away very soon and we carried on. It was a damn good ride with great scenery. After about two hours Michael came off his bike, nothing really serious, the back end came out on him on a slippy patch down a hill, as I watched it happen he was remarkably calm about it, I could see his eyes as he was falling and they almost sighed. Apart from a grazed knee and a couple of bruises he was fine so we carried on, reaching Pho Rang about lunchtime, so had some lunch. Carried on going and the scenery was just getting better and better, we also saw an outline of the sun behind clouds for the first time since I arrived in Vietnam, I’ve forgotten how much I like the sun. We followed a river for a bit and it was sublime. We reached Lao Cai, filled up with petrol again and set off for Sapa. As we were climbing a hill a buffalo was running alongside us, a huge fucker and he was pissed, proper angry about something and he was coming our way. I sped up and left him though he ran straight in front of Michael who had to take emergency manoeuvres and stopped in record distance. (we also saw a bloke riding a big buffalo like a horse, it was great). As we were climbing up the hill again Michael’s bike Martin (it’s a Honda super dream) started cutting out, it did it again so we went back down the hill to a mechanic. Martin was also smoking. They immediately checked the oil and there wasn’t a drop of it. Michael was pissed off at himself (he’s an engineer), they filled it up and it ran fine. They also tightened my chain. After not being crazy about Martha (my bike) she’s starting to grow on me, she looks shit and lots of things don’t work on her though she goes through like a champ, she is thirsty though. So we set off a third time and the views were just getting better and better, though as we were riding up it was getting damn foggy. Visibility was low and it was getting cold, then after about half an hour you could see the sun better, and soon we had ridden over the fog and there was blue sky! I just started laughing and pointing at the sun. The rest of the ride was immense, the views were incredible, big mountains and rolling rice paddies (google search sapa and look at the images, we were riding too much to stop, and my photo’s wouldn’t do it justice). We arrived in sapa, found a hotel and checked in, stripped off the numerous layers and went out in shorts for a walk about in the sunshine with an ice cream. Had  a walk around, an orange and back to the hotel for a shower on my knees thanks to the shit water pressure, reminded me of Mongolia, out for an average dinner, a walk around, stopped off at a place for cake, read a bit more of the Great Gatsby and bed early. Michael isn’t feeling too well so going to sleep in then have a leisurely ride to Pho Rang before a big day after to as north as we can get.