I recently returned from a trip to Sapa which is a very small town near the Chinese border in the mountainous Northwest region of the country. It is pretty well touristed but still manages to have an outpost feeling to it.

It was FREEZING. The whole place was shrouded in fog which was unfortunate because the whole point of going is for the view and hiking.

I had spent some time shopping in Hanoi before I left. I got an ill-fitting royal blue fleece warm up suit, scarf and rain/wind jacket all for the low price of $9.

I wouldn't have felt so cold if there had been a warm place to retreat to but none of the rooms had heating. There was one restuarant with a wood burning stove and we spent a lot of time there.

It was actually kind of fun because all of the travelers could commiserate over our shared discomfort. We had switched to a room with a wood burning stove on our second night there. Unfortunately, we failed to confirm that wood would be available. When I asked for some wood, there didn't seem to be any in the whole town.

The front desk clerk did however give me the 124 page Bai Tap Hoa Hoc paper chemistry book to burn. I never did well in chemistry and since everyone knows that chemistry corrupts the mind of our youth , I would've happily burned it if I thought I could've gotten more then 30 seconds of heat from it.

Instead, once the restaurant closed and everyone headed off to their rooms, five of us sat in the lobby around a bucket of embers that the night desk clerk kept and told jokes. (more acurately I listened to jokes because I don't know any. Please feel free to send some my way) It was fun.

On our last day, the weather cleared up and I was grateful to go walking and enjoy the beautiful landscape. It is nice when you get what you came for but also get a bit of the unexpected.