Day 79

Ha Giang Loop Day 3

When I woke up I felt like a corpse. Actually I felt worse than corpse, I felt like an extremely hungover corpse. I felt so ill I couldn't eat any breakfast, so tired I could barely keep my eyes open, and my throat hurt so much from 3 nights of karaoke that I couldn't even drink without it hurting. I was definitely reaping the rewards of my choices last night, but hey, play stupid games then win stupid prizes.

The start of the day was a blur, I was so focused on trying not to feel sick and stay awake I don't even remember the surroundings. We stopped at a viewpoint for a while and I took the opportunity to sit on a chair and try and recover the best I could. It's ironic because the day that my easy driver finally stopped feeling sick, I felt incredibly sick. I found a hammock in the building and half fell asleep as I was that tired and need to lie down. Turns out no one knew where I was and I woke up to Quin saying that we gotta go and then I realised that everyone had left and he spent a while searching for me. Whoops. We were only about 5 minutes behind and we could see the group in the distance across the valley but it was nice as it felt like we were on our own adventure. Also, my mini nap revitalised me, I still felt a little worse for wear but felt maybe 5x better than I did.

The weather was starting to get a bit rainy and it was a little windy too so we all stopped to put on our obnoxiously in your face blue or purple plastic full body ponchos, so that's why you see me looking like a bin bag for the whole day. When we caught up, everyone said that I looked alive again so that was good news and worth the 5 minute delay - though it didn't stop me from finding the nicest spot on the floor and trying for another nap.

Our next proper stop was a bit of a confusing one as it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, then it turns out it was next to a massive field of weed plants. Some of the drivers picked a few stems for themselves and we went on to the worst roads we had faced for the whole loop so far. Sitting on the back of a bike really took its toll on your ass and for me, my back. Maybe it's because I'm slightly taller, maybe because of last night but my back was in so much pain and the constant bumps didn't help. I was honestly quite glad I was only doing 3 days as I couldn't survive another day. After a constant onslaught of my new favourite Vietnamese phrase "Oi chau oi" (oh my god) we had gotten past the worst of it.

We stopped for lunch but I still didn't really have an appetite so I only had a small amount which was a shame as it looked super tasty. I instead found a sack of leaves to have a lie down on (this time I had learnt my lesson as they were right next to where we parked so it would have been hard to leave me behind again). I didn't really nap as there were some kids playing nearby but every little bit of rest was working wonders on getting me back to Ha Giang. Quin came over and effectively laughed at me for getting in such a state which I cannot blame him for as from his perspective I was dressed in a bin bag laying on a sack of leaves - definitely a low point (I guess not as low as throwing up in a bush yesterday but not far off).

After lunch, we went to a waterfall where I grabbed some hot peach tea to help with my destroyed throat which was really good. We took a group photo then headed towards our final stop of the loop. The final stop was nice, a little platform overlooking a river but what made this stop great was the amount of Chinese tourists. That might sound weird but Chinese tourists LOVE taking pictures with white people. I don't know what it is but they love it, so us and the other group ended up spending ages taking various photos with the hoards of tourists. It was surreal. It wasn't even like a quick selfie, they were properly posed photos - so crazy. And some of the time they weren't even asking, they would take a picture with us in the background.

And that was it, we make the short distance back to Ha Giang, and we're back at the hostel. We thank and tip our drivers then head inside. Most of us had a night bus booked to Hanoi tonight so I took a quick shower, then after claiming our free T-shirts, we headed to a restaurant for some dinner before our journey. My appetite had come back in full force and there's nothing I craved more than a pizza, so we went to the Italian restaurant I went to a few days ago and enjoyed some well needed food.

We were split between 2 busses, and I had opted for a slightly nicer bus which I'm glad I did as I was so tired I fell asleep almost immediately. We arrived in Hanoi at like 1am which kinda sucked, but I made my way to the same hostel I always went to and went to bed for a 2nd time.Read more