Ha Giang Loop

Our 3 day, 2 night motorcycle tour just ended. We went through a little 200km loop in the central north of Vietnam riding on the back of a motorcycle. Each person had their own driver none of whom spoke English and the one tour guide who spoke pretty well for like 12 or 15 of us.

On the first day we took a sleeper bus from Hanoi at about 9 and got to Ha Giang at around 3am. They let us sleep in a hostel for a few more hours, we got breakfast and then we got assigned to drivers and set off at about 9:30. Our drivers’ names were Mua and Say.

We started that day in Ha Giang city and ended in a place called Dong Van at about 5. That first day was pretty cloudy and we went up into the mountains fairly high so it got quite chilly! We hadn’t really prepared for the cold so we were both under-dressed that first day. We had hot pot that night with some Australians and some European people and somehow none of them knew how hot pot worked so Jane and I were like teaching them how to do it.

We were served a little bit of “happy water” a local vodka/moonshine thing out of a plastic pitcher. We later saw many people drying their corn crops out in the sun, and found out that they’re just using the corn to make happy water. No one really eats corn here but there sure are a lot of corn crops.

On nov 17, the second day, we had a little breakfast of some eggs and bread and cucumber and tomato before setting off again. This day we did about 50km from Dong Van to Yen Minh, stopping at all sorts of view points including the beautiful sky walk and getting a nice big lunch again.

We got to our home stay that afternoon at around 4 and then after we were shown to our little room, they took us to go swimming at a local waterfall. The water was really cold but very pretty!

The homestay was like one big wooden house on stilts. There were a bunch of small bedrooms upstairs but the walls didn’t go to the ceiling so it wasn’t private or quiet. We got to rest a little after the waterfall and before dinner at 7.

They served us a nice family style meal again and we had a couple beers. Once we’d eaten a bit then the drivers started coming around with more happy water, this time in old plastic water bottles, and leading everyone in doing shots, they have a little chant they had us do each time. It seemed fairly tame at first until the tour guide came over and had us do one shot for each different way to say cheers at our table! And then he just had us do a couple more.

Then there was karaoke for an hour or two but they shut it down pretty promptly at 10:30ish. We were in a village after all, and the karaoke was just in the open air, and very loud.

Day 3 started our a little rough but not too bad, they served us crepes for breakfast with a little fruit, and again some more beautiful vistas. We stopped in a little town and got to see some ladies making hemp clothing in the traditional way, and plenty more views and then the tour ended at about 3, back at the hostel in Ha Giang. From there we got a bus at about 4 and arrived back in Hanoi at around 10pm!

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