Most hotel in Hanoi will allowed you to keep your bags there, hoping that when you return, you will stay there. When we took our train tickets from Thanh Vinh Tourist Hotel, they also offered us to keep our bags there, plus free usage of bathroom. However, I would like to try out other hotel, and also the fact that I was a bit disappointed with the Halong Bay tour package that they gave us, we rejected their offer instead.
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We planned to do a day trip to Sapa, by ourselves. That’s mean we needed to buy the train tickets to Lao Cai, the gateway city to Sapa. The problem was we were unable to buy the tickets ourselves. I visited Vietnam Railways website, there is no way to buy the train tickets online. Before we departed, I emailed a few travel cafes and tour agents in Hanoi, and they quoted me some prices that ranging from USD $3 commission to USD $20 for one soft sleeper train ticket to Lao Cai. I think it’s quite expensive.
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