Ha Giang Loop Day 1

After leaving Ha Giang making our way up the mountain we were told by locals that the police was up ahead. But there was really no alternative route and we had expected to be stopped by police at some point because they do like stopping tourists in that popular area 🤑
Because we had once been stopped but then let go in Hanoi we thought “ why not play dumb and drive past” unfortunately they followed and stopped us and we had to go back to their checkpoint station. After waiting for a while we were charged with 2 m Dong per person ( 80€) for not having a valid motorcycle license. However this is just a ruse, as even tourists with a motorcycle license need to pay between 500000 and 2 m, most tourists we talked to haggled it down to 1.5m but since we “ didn’t follow orders” we just went with it. The police chief had a nice big briefcase full of tourist money. Cause we didn’t have enough, Jeroen had to drive half and hour to the next ATM. Of course you can’t get a receipt but allegedly you only have to pay once per loop, we will see. Despite the roads being pretty busy with tourists we really enjoyed the beautiful views of the rugged mountains, so different to any place elsewhere. A bit later than expected we arrived in our next hostel, which apparently was a popular party hostel for group tours. Dinner was shared with lots of “ happy water” and karaoke.

By chance wr had our action camera running when we were pulled over so we will add that video to the post later.Read more