After taking an overnight bus from Khon Kaen to Bangkok to catch our early morning flight to Hanoi, Prang and I were relieved when we finally arrived and were able to crash for a few hours at our hostel in the Old Quarter. We enjoyed North Vietnamese beers and of course a banh mi and some phở. The next morning we headed out to Ha Long Bay, one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature. We embarked on a "FantaSea" 2 day/1 night cruise with a group of hearing-impaired tourists who LOVED teaching us some useful Chinese sign language.  Next, we returned to Hanoi before catching an overnight bus to Sa Pa, a collection of terraced rice-paddy villages in the northwest, just 30 minutes from the Chinese border. The weather was rainy and dreary nearly the entire time we were there but when the fog did clear, the landscapes were truly breathtaking.