Sapa was still covered in cloud when I woke up so the roads up here were going to be wet.
Because of where I had to leave This Moment, I had taken my back wheel (the most expensive part of the bike) as well as my seat post up to my room just in case anyone was thinking of taking them. Initially they had asked me to leave the bike on the street but the compromise was to leave it beside the lift. It didn’t fit, but with both wheels removed, it was workable.
So I had to reassemble things. I also had breakfast at the cafe downstairs, connected with the hotel. They’re such lovely people, and the lady in the photo below kept an eye on the bike the whole time.
So, breakfasted and packed, I crossed the road and realised I hadn’t connected the gear changing cable box, so I stopped and sorted it out.
I took off and hadn’t gone 30 metres when I heard – “John” ! Whaaaat ? I wasn’t expecting anyone to recognise me here. It turned out to be Travis and Jemima, bikepackers from Melbourne. I’d met Travis at the hotel in Tam Durong three nights ago. It was a great coincidence and as they’re heading towards Chengdu as well, I gave him my number and we’ll probably meet up along the way.
That was a great start, and I was still smiling about it 30 minutes later. By that stage, I’d negotiated Sapa and was heading downhill on a fairly damp road. It started to dry out and the traffic both ways completely disappeared. A few hundred metres later, I saw the queue of vehicles at the blocked road – there was work going on above, so we all waited for nearly half an hour.
After that, the road was dry and the fun downhill started. It was quick, but I still had to be cautious on the winding road. It felt like I was almost in Lao Cai before I had to pedal seriously again.
Once in Lao Cai, I saw a Banh Mi stand and couldn’t resist butt as I was eating, I checked the route in Google maps and saw that the Vietnamese border post closes at 11:30 – so I had 35 mins to get there and made it easily.
I was queued up at 11:20 and walked into China 35 minutes later. Immediately I felt the difference. It was quiet, there were no car or motorbike horns blaring, nobody was shouting, and the roads were clean.
My next task was to find the hotel – done very easily. Then I needed to eat and ensure that I could pay with WeChat or Alipay. As it turns out, the system is brilliant. You can buy fruit from a street vendor without cash. They all have their QR codes displayed somewhere.
Lunch was at a food court and dinner was down the road – both quite different to what I’d been eating in Vietnam.
