Sapa is a town high in the mountains in the northwest of Vietnam, just over the border from China. It is very popular with tourists, since, like Yuanyang, it is surrounded by beautiful terraced fields studded with traditional ethnic minority villages, but unlike Yuanyang, it is also full of hotels, shops, cafes, and English- and French-speaking guides.

Which means, unfortunately, a lot of mediocre Western and westernized Vietnamese food. Oh, not everything we ate here was disappointing, of course, but most of the restaurants along the main drag were less than impressive. One of the best things we ate was actually a snack some bored restaurant-workers were making for themselves - since we were the only patrons, they shared it with us as well - a fried patty of glutinous rice with a bit of taro (I think?) in the center. Sounds simple, but the chewy-crisp circles were irresistible.

We also took a tour through some local farms and villages, where we saw rice, peanuts, taro, potatoes, and indigo growing, and shared a cup of tea and some snacks with a local family. Our host brought a parade of treats - sweet crispy rice cakes made with fried rice and sugar-cane syrup, steamed glutinous rice buns stuffed with egg and pork, and leafy-tasting Vietnamese tea - out of the kitchen, where over the fireplace, a pig that had been slaughtered for the lunar new year was curing.

From Sapa we moved on to Hanoi. Arriving early in the morning, we refreshed ourselves with some Vietnamese coffee - the finely-ground and packed coffee is brewed in individual drip contraptions that sit over your glass, and with the addition of condensed milk and ice is more like a dessert than a drink. After some sightseeing, we made a pilgrimage to a phở (Vietnamese beef noodle soup) restaurant recommended by our guidebook. I've started to notice a lot of variations in the phởs we've had, but maybe that speculation is best saved for another entry.

Unfortunately, on our first day in Hanoi, I came down with a pretty bad sore throat. The second and last day in Hanoi was spent mostly in the hotel room, watching the Discovery Channel and napping. Greg ventured out a little, but mainly to buy food. In the evening, on the way to our overnight train, we stopped at the well-known Chả Cá Lã Vọng, a restaurant that serves only one dish: chả cá, or grilled fish. A pan full of cooked and seasoned fish is brought to your table on a brazier, along with dishes of fresh vegetables for you to add to the pan, and herbs, peanuts, noodles and chili sauce for you to combine with the fish in your bowl. Bright with turmeric, and glistening with oil, the delicious fish chunks are really brought to life by the accompaniment of the bright herbal flavors - as is the case with so much of Vietnamese food.