Andrew woke up at 6:15am and managed to wake me up so we both got ready and went for our complimentary breakfast. There was no Pho Bo available, even though it was the famous traditional Vietnamese breakfast, so we had to order a Western breakfast instead. We asked if we would be able to keep our room until later in the day as we weren't leaving until 5pm, which wasn't a problem. We packed most of our stuff before walking to 'Sapa Rooms' to take part in our Vietnamese cooking class. Once we arrived we were asked to choose a welcome drink off the menu so we both opted for an unusual fruit shake. The chef introduced himself and told us that once we had finished or drink we would be heading to the local fresh market. We walked around the traditional produce market where we saw a black coloured variety of chicken, live crab, fish and caterpillar and dried gecko. The chef mentioned a number of things that he thought we may not have encountered in our country, one of which being a pomegranate! We passed a number of Chinese medicinal herb stalls before returning to 'Sapa Rooms' to wait for our minibus to the 'Mountain Retreat'. It was much cooler up on the mountain and after a short rest we began our cookery course. The first thing on the menu was fresh spring rolls, which involved chopping a lot of vegetables and so I came across a hurdle straight away as the carrot was too hard for me to cut with a broken wrist! However, the chef helped me out a bit so we got there in the end. It felt strange not to fry the spring rolls but I thought they tasted far better and they were obviously much healthier. The next thing on the menu was green papaya salad which Andrew had first sampled in 'Ko Tao' and couldn't actually finish as it tasted that bad. However, it tasted surprisingly good and so we put it down to the fact that the papaya was riper and so it tasted less plant-like. The main dish we cooked was stir-fried pork which was also delicious as it had a coconut milk base. We ate the dish before observing how to make sweet potato soup. We weren't convinced it was going to taste all that nice as we couldn't get our head around the fact that boiled potato was being added to sugar. It wasn't the worst thing I had eaten but it was certainly not the best desert. Andrew ate a little bit out of politeness mainly because the chef was looking over his shoulder! We also shared one salad dish but we didn't have room for the other one. We then had a long wait for our return minivan trip to Sapa town. 
We had a rest back at our hotel before going to the 'Baguette & Chocolat' restaurant so I could sample a real desert of the chocolate variety. However, once again I was served something different to what I had ordered and it had clearly come straight out of the fridge! It was average at best and the service was pretty poor as we were immediately told to remove our shoes before even being greeted or given the menu! We returned to our hotel and our minivan transfer to Lao Cai turned up early. We went to pick up some other people and as we were waiting outside of a hotel we saw a young child climb a tree and bash the thing around so that the fruit of the tree came crashing to the ground. The group of children on the ground went crazy, collecting the fruit to eat. We finally started driving to Lao Cai but the driver kept stopping every few km along the way. It was such a memorable journey as we saw children, probably as young as five, herding water buffalo up the mountain. One young boy simply sat on the back of a buffalo staring at us in a curious fashion. We eventually reached Lao Cai and found a cheap restaurant near the train station where we ordered a fried rice dish. As we were waiting I saw a rat run across the counter, which wan't that much of a shock to me. We boarded the train and I fell asleep almost instantly, even though it was only around 8pm. A local woman kept talking to Andrew in Vietnamese but he obviously had no idea what she was talking about until somebody came in to adjust the air conditioning and she became a much happier lady!