Ha Giang is a region of northern Vietnam known amongst backpackers for a loop tour that is done by motorbike. We wanted to make the most of our time here and opted to extend the standard 3 or 4 day tour into 6 days, encompassing the Cao Bang province as well as Ha Giang. But first we took a day off after our busy Sapa trip. After a lie in we explored Ha Giang town, climbing the small mountain for a great view of the city and then stopping for a smoothie at the viewpoint cafe on the way down. Then we wandered along the river to a large temple with beautiful tiles and bonsai trees. It ended up being quite a lot of walking and not really a day off, but very enjoyable all the same.

The next day our bike trip began. Since foreigners biking is so common is this region, there’s an increased police presence doing license checks and high fines for not having the correct license. Anything above 50cc engine requires a motorbike license not just a car license, plus it has to be a specific international driver’s permit which is an extra £15 or so for a Brit, but is not even possible for an American to get. So, for multiple reasons, if we were stopped by police we would not be able to provide the proper license and would be fined. We’d heard horror stories that some people were stopped and fined every day of their 4 day trip. Even worse, a couple of people reported their bike being taken and impounded, which would not just make the trip cost more but would end it completely. This was the thing that convinced us not to risk it, and to book the ‘easy rider’ tour, which just means being driven around on the back of a local’s bike. We set off early in the morning to visit a local village before hitting the road. It was a pleasant excursion, but on the way from here to the main road we hit our first police stop, where they were breathalysing people. And Creed’s driver was over the limit. Vietnam has recently changed to a 0 tolerance policy, so even the smallest amount was over the limit, but this did not fill us with confidence, and suddenly his overly cheery attitude at 9am and slinging his arm around Creed seemed suspect. Fortunately our guide contacted the company and informed us we would be swapping in a new driver without us having to ask for it. Annoyingly, from a perspective of convincing us we’d made the right decision to pay for the easy rider tour, we never had another police stop in 6 days. But the tour turned out to be incredible.

There are a few points of interest to stop at along the way, but the main draw is simply driving through the incredible landscapes of northern Vietnam. Bright blue rivers, mountains, rice paddies, limestone carsts, small colourful villages, hairpin bends, and so many more things to see at every moment. We visited a large cave with cool rock formations inside and a crawl through section which descended down to a pool which in the past was the only source of water for the nearby villages. Our first day was not a very long drive, so we took lots of stops at viewpoints and arrived at our village in time to take a walk around it. Of course, we chose to relax in the room before doing so, and ended up relaxing a little too long, because two thirds of our walk ended up unfortunately being in the dark. This far north in December the sunset was just after 5pm. Because we’d chosen an extended version of the tour that is not very common we were on a private tour, but in the evening we met a group tour who were on their final night and had dinner with them followed by drinks and karaoke. In this region it is very common to toast each other over dinner with corn wine, which basically means doing multiple shots every evening.

The next day we headed to the very North of the country, close to the border with China. We went through some of the most amazing scenery of the whole trip on this day – a famous mountain pass with a snaking road between the peaks, rice terraces with layers of mountains forming the backdrop, and scenic villages nestled in the valleys. We visited the house of the old Hmong king, and ended up at a market town with pretty lights and dancing in the evening.

In this region you should always expect rain, and the next day it hit. We stopped at a viewpoint of supposedly another stunning mountain pass, but thanks to the fog we couldn’t see any of it. We were given a full set of waterproofs, including coat, pants and boots, and these were actually very effective at keeping not just the rain out but also the wind. We headed down the other side of the mountain range at a slower pace, reaching a river where we took a boat ride through a narrow gap between the towering peaks on either side. The rain cleared up, and at the next amazing mountain pass we took a short hike out along the ridge to get an incredible view of the 14 levels of road snaking up the mountain. At this point it would soon be dark, and our driver informed us we still had an hour and a half to go to our next hotel. This was frustrating, as of course the rain had slowed us down but not by over an hour, and we would’ve happily got up early to ensure enough daylight for the day (we hadn’t left until around 9am, so leaving at 7 still wouldn’t have been outrageously early). We had no choice, so continued on the bikes, and got to enjoy a little more scenery before the dark settled in. With it unfortunately came more fog, so we were slowed down even more, and ending up driving 2 hours on the bikes in the complete dark, missing a section of the road that according the Google maps reviews was incredibly pretty.

The next morning we set off even later than the previous day, and first visited a mountain with a large hole through it, known as the eye of god. At this point our guide told us we would need to drive in the dark again this evening to make it to the place our itinerary listed as the stopping point for the night. And getting up earlier this morning wouldn’t have made a difference, as we needed to visit a waterfall after midday when the dam was open to see it at its best. Which did mean that we could’ve done the two hours in the dark from yesterday, in the light this morning, if the itinerary was done better. The guide understood our frustration, and at this point we were able to communicate that the stopping points listed on the itinerary didn’t matter to us, we would sleep wherever convenient, but did not want to miss anything else by driving in the dark, and did not want to rush through sights on the itinerary just to prioritise a hotel. At this point we discovered that the person who made the itinerary did not know the driving distances and times like the guide did, but the guide had been told that this was the itinerary we wanted, rather than just the one we were presented with by the company, so he had been trying to stick to the itinerary to please us even when it didn’t make any sense. I really wish we’d had this conversation the day before, and had just stopped at the first hotel we found after dark, as from here on we were able to have a much more enjoyable itinerary just by swapping a couple of things around and changing the hotel locations.

After a couple more hours on the bike our next stop was the waterfall of Ban Gioc on the border with China. We had left the Ha Giang province and were now in the region of Cao Bang, where the general scenery while driving was less spectacular, but this spot on the border was absolutely stunning. The waterfall itself was very wide and the water at the bottom was bright blue. We took a small barge right up to the falls and then close to jumping distance into China, where all the tourists on that side of the river waved at us. We then visited a hillside monastery next to the falls with spectacular views of the river, the mountains and the villages. Our hotel this evening was built into a cliff, and due to our rearranging of the tour it had been fully booked when we tried to reserve it last minute, but the guide asked them if they’d notify us if there was any last minute cancellation, and fortunately there was. We ended up with the best room in the whole property, with walls made out of rock. The reason for the full hotel was soon made clear – a company Christmas party was going on in the restaurant which was in a little cave. We were relegated to the next door dining hall for our dinner, but afterwards while watching the band play we were invited to join some of the buisnessmen at their table for drinks. Our guide warned us that if we sat with them we would be plied with rice wine and find it difficult to escape, and we should have listened. Every single person wanted to do shots with us, and then suddenly we were all in a circle dancing around a fire, and then there were more shots, and I don’t remember how the evening ended.

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The next morning we were unsurprisingly late to breakfast, but it wasn’t too much of a problem. Our first stop was a large cave just down the road from the hotel, and then we were back on the bikes and the fresh air revived us. We stopped at a knife village, and watched some blacksmiths turn rough metal into machetes, and made friends with some puppies that lived in the village. Then we visited an incense village, which was very scenic with rice paddies and winding walkways lined with thousands of incense sticks drying in the sun. We watched some ladies split wood into sticks, some dye one end, others dip the other end into the incense mixture, and others arrange them into bunches and fan them out for drying. After lunch we had a longer drive, and again the scenery wasn’t super exciting, but the weather was good again, and the roads were easy. We arrived at our final destination of Ba Be lake just in time to see the sun set over the trees surrounding the water.

On our final morning of the trip we took a boat ride, due to be around 2.5 hours, though we didn’t know the exact destinations we’d be visiting. We crossed the lake and entered a small tributary where we had a long ride to a small waterfall. At this point we realised the most interesting site around the lake, a cave only accessible by water, would need to be skipped to keep in the stated tour time. We asked if we could go there and the boat driver said no, it was too far. It was another instance of knowing we should have asked before the tour where we would be going, as we would have happily swapped the waterfall for the cave, if the guide had only known what our priorities were. We just keep being optimistic that everything will be great and we should stop causing problems before they’ve even happened! We asked our guide to negotiate a good price to add on the cave, and were willing to pay a few dollars each. It ended up being a great decision, as the cave was actually more of a tunnel, with the tributary running straight through the rock wall and space to scramble up the rocks alongside the water to get some great views. From here we headed back to the main lake, stopping at a ‘fairy pool’ which was a small pond now cut off from the main lake, and an island in the middle of the lake with a small temple on the top. When we arrived back at the dock after an almost 4 hour boat trip, it was time for our final lunch of the tour and we were very satisfied. After lunch we said goodbye to our guides and hopped on a bus back to Hanoi – which was hugely delayed and involved a bus swap half way and was not a particularly enjoyable transportation experience. But despite the couple of mishaps and the one missed section due to weather, winter sun hours, and poor planning, our Ha Giang Loop tour had been awesome, our guide and driver were great fun, and the scenery was the best I saw in the whole of Vietnam. All in all an absolutely fantastic trip.

Thanks for following along on my crazy adventures!

 Ros ♥

If you’re interested in how I got here, or where I went next, check out the rest of the story!