Burning brakes and a train ride and bed bugs again

I had been attached yet again in the night by bed bugs, I smelt the bed and it all smelt clean, not very impressed, they don’t seem to etch much which is good, was on the bike and ready for the downhill. I was really looking forward to this, it was a 1km uphill then a big long downhill. The road that we had taken hours to ride up was passing very quickly, it was flying by and the trailer after the latest fix was rolling really well behind the bike. I tried to keep away from the potholes to hopefully keep the back tire safe.
As the km disappeared I was soon passing buses and motorbikes on the way down, I stopped about half way down to do some photos as the day was a lot nicer then when I rode up and with the morning sun it was a stunning view. My brakes were fairly hot but still working well so after the photos I was back racing down the hill trying to catch the buses and bikes that had passed me at my photo stop. Which meant more speed, trying to keep the flow, running the apex of the corners so I was not braking too much. I was soon passing the buses again and the motorbikes it was easy to keep the speed as the road was pretty steep.
I zig zagged down the hill the ride was fantastic, it you every get the chance to head to Sapa I recommend riding down the hill to Lao Cai, you hardly have to peddle very much at all, just make sure you have a bike with good brakes. Well worth it. I was soon riding into Lao Cai and making my way towards the train station, the ride from Sapa had only taken 35minutes to do 38 km so I was doing a average of 55km/h O yea baby, should have gone back up just to come down again it was that good.
I managed to get a soft seat for the train back to Hanoi so it was looking up from the hard seat I thought I was going to have to take. I did have to wait around for a bit but this gave me time to have breakfast. I also wanted to arrange for my bike to be loaded but I had to wait till an hour before to sort this out. Once the bike had been loaded I could relax, I had snacks for the trip and had had breakfast. Believe it or not but the train left on time. My carriage was fairly empty to start with but this would not last.
The train follows the Song Hong river most of the way back to Hanoi, it was a fairly pleasant journey, much more preferred then a bus ride. For a couple of hours the carriage filled right up till there were people sitting in the centre aisle, which the aircon could not handle so it got pretty warm in the carriage, saying that it was still cooler then the air outside. I slept on and off throughout the ride, waking myself up once when I started snoring, had a look around no one was watching so that was alright, mostly just read my book and tried to speak Vietnamese to the kids sitting in front of me. I must have been pronouncing the words just about right because there mum could understand me. At the start the kids were a bit shy but by the end of the trip they were answering my questions.
We trundled into Hanoi on time at 8:30pm, not bad Vietnam rail, I managed to find my bike and trailer and put it back together then it was off to find a hotel, the only problem was I was not sure where I was, well I knew I was at the train station but was not sure what road I was on and could not find anyone to help, great, no speaka the English. Fished out the lonely bible and took a compass bearing and was off north east, managed to find the road I needed and headed towards touristville. Found it but because I was so late in, had to ride around town a bit to find a hotel. Ended up getting a nice room with Wifi and large tv with the smallest bathroom I had ever come across. The room was really nice but no way could you swing a cat in the bathroom, in fact I don’t even think you could swing a gerbil in there. The best thing about it was the water pressure was fantastic.
So I ended up staying two nights as by the time I found the hotel and got sorted it was about 11pm and I needed sleep. The next day I did not really do too much, booked my Halong bay trip, after I had to explain to the guy twice that I would be riding my bike out here and riding it back this may have been a mistake.