Our overnight train to Sapa was a foretaste of what hell might be like. 6 bunks is always a bit unpleasant, but this could have been ok had the entire car not been occupied by a group of the rudest people we have pretty much ever encountered. They were a Vietnamese troupe travelling to Lao Cai to do some kind of performance: clearly not one where rest, sleep, or quiet is requisite. They partied until almost 4 in the morning, covering the entire train car with cigarettes, beer bottles, and urine. With four other people in the compartment trying to sleep, they talked out loud to each other, talked on their cellphones, sent SMS messages incessantly (without putting the phone on vibrate, so tones sounded every 2 minutes), and generally made the trip so intolerable that in the morning we just stared at each other, thoroughly traumatized and almost unable to believe that anyone could behave so badly. In total, we got no more than a couple hours of sleep, interrupted every few minutes.

In other words, we cannot handle the noise in Vietnam much longer. It is too bad, because the country is delightful in almost every other way. The food is great, many people are friendly, the scenery is amazing, and so on. But even here in Sapa, a small town, the honking and general noise, plus the constant requests to "buy me?" [from me, we think], "excuse me, buy something?" are just too much to take at this point in the trip.

We did have a highlight yesterday: watching Iraq beat Saudi to take the Asian Cup. Our vociferous cheering provided some entertainment for the Vietnamese who, while supporting Iraq, were rather quieter for a change. Of course, halfway through the game the electricity on one side of the street went out, but we just switched to another restaurant on the other side and carried on. We spent most of the day, however, just recovering from the awful journey here and eating in our hotel restaurant, which serves the most amazing grilled fish with dill ever. Their fresh spring rolls with herbs are also amazing, so I think we'll just eat there again today. AD broke out of her normal rhythm of eating a fraction of what B and I do to order a second serving of the shrimp springrolls during the game yesterday, which as far as we could tell contained no shrimp whatsoever but some absolutely delicious mushrooms.

It is very nice to be out of the heat for a day or two. Sapa is at 1600m and is rainy, so it is actually possible to sleep without A/C for a change. Today we'll try to do some hiking and jogging now that the rain appears to be stopping, and tomorrow we leave early in a car for Dien Bien Phu near the Lao border. We have some fairly arduous days of travelling ahead as we turn toward Luang Prabang in Laos, so we decided to splurge on a private car for what promises to be an unpleasant trip. We'll spend a night in Dien Bien Phu, perhaps visiting what is left of the battle site, before taking the 5:30am bus across the Lao border. Dien Bien Phu is only 35km from the border crossing, and the town the bus goes to on the other side is only 75km more, but we can't expect to hit speeds of more than 25km an hour, and that may be optimistic. So we'll see. Then we plan to float on a boat to Luang Prabang, although AD, having done the same in Cambodia, is a little skeptical of the plan. On the way, we might overnight in a hammock in a village--supposedly, that's the best accomodation available. We've broken out the DEET and started taking Malarone, but I think it will be fine. After all, AD says that Laotians are QUIET, and at this point, I'm willing to put up with almost any inconvenience to be rid of noise.