We did the overnight train up to Lao Cai/Sapa and spent one night in Sapa. It gave us a taste but I did wish we had a few more days to explore the extended areas around Sapa considering it was a bit of a journey to get there. Sapa itself isn't that big and we were able to walk down to Cat Cat village and explore the Sapa in that one day. I would have loved more time to trek in the areas around Sapa some more and visit some villages. Instead, the next day, we jumped on a tour that kind of centred around a visit to the Bac Ha market and then dropped us off at Lao Cai to jump on a train back to Hanoi. We fit a lot in our trip to Sapa but it was pretty grueling that way.

I'm not sure if it's just because of the places I visited in each but I find Hanoi quainter that HCMC (though not comparable to the quaintness of Hoi An). Tourist visited areas such as the Old Quarter are less redeveloped than HCMC which preserves a lot of the historical architecture. I enjoyed the food in Hanoi better too as I'm told there is a notable difference between northern and southern cuisine. The traffic is still pretty insane though. I want to go back to Vietnam for another visit particularly since we found a flight deal but one of the conditions the missus has set is that we need to be able to fit in Hanoi, she doesn't care about HCMC.

I was able to sleep a bit on the train to Sapa but the missus had a tough time. It was a rough ride with parts feeling really bumpy at times.