This is the day we managed to get to Sapa by with no communication whatsoever, since nobody spoke even a single word of English. Essentially, we resorted to shouting “SAPA!?” at everybody until 5 buses later we got there.
We paid 280,000LAK per person to get to Dien Bien Phu, and we soon realised that it was going to be the worst ride ever. The minibus lurched sideways as it wound round and round the mountainside, it juggled and rumbled in uncomfortable directions, and within an hour of departure, everybody was carsick.
Thankfully we arrived at the border in about two hours, situated high in the mountain passes between Vietnam and Laos. We watched as two Americans were turned away because ‘visa on arrival’ really meant apply beforehand and pick up on arrival. We began to fear that we too would be rejected since we hadn’t applied for anything, which would have been horrifying after all that effort we went through.
The Vietnamese border guard looked at our passport and asked, “Visa?” I replied, “Singapore Vietnam ASEAN friends.” I began to get apprehensive, but his lips curled into a smile and he said, “Yes friends! Happy new year!” And just like that, we crossed the land border without a visa.
The nauseating ride continued, winding through the Vietnamese Highlands and unveiling breathtaking scenery we were too tired and too giddy to appreciate.
The rocky outcrops soon gave way to wide boulevards surrounded by lush paddy fields as we entered Dien Bien Phu, alighting at 1655. There wasn’t too much to do in Dien Bien Phu, and we had wasted too much time in Muang Khua, so we searched for an overnight bus to Sapa.
There weren’t any. But there was a bus headed to Lai Chau two hours from Sapa at 120,000VND per person. The problem was, the bus left right now. We dashed across the city searching for an ATM and found one in the nick of time.
We were the only foreigners on the bus, which was laden with luggages and had a floor lined with sacks of rice. We squeezed into the backseat with zero legroom and settled in for a cramped and unpleasant 6-hour ride to Lai Chau. Interestingly enough, everyone else’s seats had legroom except ours. And people kept getting off in the middle of the road presumably next to their homes. 
We reached Lai Chau at 2300 to find a deserted city with barely a soul walking about. The next bus out was apparently at 0400, so being too cheap to actually get a room, we hung out in a hotel lobby and stole their wifi throughout the night.
At 0600, we discovered that there were actually no buses to Sapa that day, so we boarded a bus for 50,000VND headed to Son La and alighted at Binh Lu, the crossroads between the roads headed to Sapa and Son La. After much confusion and anticipation, we boarded a bus for 70,000VND headed to Sapa.
EXERCISE SILK ROAD 