SE Asia

Today squeezed in a near 200km motorbike loop into 13 hours. After being fed at the hostel, I met my driver and fellow traveller and her driver, who was also our tour guide. My driver was called Uncle (as he's older, out of respect older people are called auntie or uncle even when you're unrelated). I missed the second part of his name, so we just called him uncle all day 😅
We set off just after 8, zooming out of Cao Bang in no time, we were quickly surrounded by beautiful Vietnamese countryside. Along the way up to the waterfall, we stopped in two villages, the first of which was an incense village. Reeds used as the core of incense sticks were laid neatly in rows by the curbside. As we walked through the tiny village, there were people taking on different jobs within the process, and it seemed like it was a very communal effort. There were water buffalo chilling in sheds, (they're used to work the farms), chickens running around and sleeping dogs laid across walkways and curled up in corners. Our tour guide explained the incense making process, and that most of the finished products are either sold to temples or at local markets.
The next village was only 10 minutes down the road, with a similar laid back atmosphere, but was known for it's blacksmithery. There were maybe half a dozen workshops with one of two people in, either melting soldering metal, hammering or shaping all sorts of objects, from knives to farming ploughs.
Apart from one person in the first village, we were the only tourists in both places, so it didn't feel crowded or invasive, and it was nice to wander through and observe seemingly traditional life for these people.
Around midday day we pulled up at Ban Gioc waterfalls, which are the largest in North Vietnam but more impressively straddle the border between Vietnam and China!
There were two main falls, the wider falls cascaded into the river, which act as the border, and the second falls were to the left, stood at 30m.
We approached the edge of the river and hopped on a raft which took us up closer to the main waterfall. Was quite funny as there were also boats/rafts leaving from the Chinese side of the waterfall too. Don't know why being able to see another country is exciting, but it was!
We walked around the second waterfall which I found more impressive, and climbed up little paths which took us really close to the water and was a lot quieter.
Just a 2 minute drive from the waterfall, we then wandered round a temple on a mountain. The temple itself wasn't particularly impressive, however the view from it was! We could see the waterfalls, the river they stem from, as well as a huge mountain range and the Chinese and Vietnamese countryside merging into one.
After a much needed lunch, uncle had a nap on his motorbike while our tour guide took us two into Dong Nguom Ngao caves. They had some pretty spectacular alien looking rock formations and pillars inside, as well a huge rock which looked like an upside down lotus flower (looked much cooler than it sounds!).
The next hour of driving after of the caves was my favourite of the whole day, any videos I took didn't really capture the beauty of it, but we just drove through really gorgeous rural countryside. Through such vivid green rice fields with the sun shining down, paddocks with water buffalo, small villages with kids running about. I was worried we might run over an animal as so many dogs and chickens ran across the road seemingly emerging from nowhere! The best thing was that the roads were so quiet, we rarely passed any other bikes, and practically no cars.
We had a little coffee stop and met one of the cutest dogs I've seen.
Feeling refuelled, we took a turn down some smaller roads and up a very bumpy hill and emerged a the top of this random path. When we hopped off the bikes and walked a few metres we were met with a row of gorgeous green mountains, the middle of which had a hole in the top, called Angel's eye, which stood in front of a small lake with the setting sunset showering a golden glow on the water. It looked like a postcard.
We drove back as the sun was stopping, and got back to the hostel in time for a beer, some food and a shower before getting whisked away on another night bus, back down to Hanoi!Read more