Broken motorbike in the cloudy Ha Giang

We took a bus from Hanoi to the city of Ha Giang, where we stayed in a shared room at a rather rural—to put it nicely—hostel. The next morning, we got up for breakfast, and I had to dig into my gluten-free muesli stash—huge shoutout to Mary, who had bought it during the time in Hong Kong for me. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve been eating much gluten otherwise, though I’m definitely not 100% sure. I’ve been feeling pretty good, aside from a bit of pain that’s been there every 3 to 4 days. It’s not normal, but it’s also not unbearable so far.
We were greeted by Slowly—yes, that’s his actual name—one of our guides, who explained the plan for the next three days. Then we met our drivers. I was happy to be driving with Minh Song, who I accidentally started calling Miso (like the soup). He’s a great driver and fun to talk to, or at least try tp talk to in some vietnamese-english mix.
We set off and covered around 85 km through stunning mountain landscapes, where the mist brushed the peaks, across sunny valleys, through pouring rain, over high passes, and down steep paths—until Jasper’s bike suddenly broke down. The issue was that his driver didn’t have any money to get it fixed on the spot, nor a phone to contact us. In the end, we had to wait about 1.5 hours on the side of the road until my driver reached Jasper, gave the other driver some money, and Jasper’s driver, Bo, returned to us.
Despite this little hiccup, we still fully enjoyed the loop. The sun got out more than expected, thats why i even got a sunburn. We finally arrived at a hotel and were able to take a real shower—OMG! We were absolutely covered in dirt, so it was very, very appreciated. After that, we had a delicious Vietnamese dinner, followed by some beers and ciders, and then a karaoke session—where we discovered that our drivers are also incredibly talented singers (see video; I’m not including the one where Jasper and I are singing—too strong contrast, haha). If they had grown up in Europe or elsewhere, who knows, maybe they could have made a career out of it.
Slowly told us that the only place he’s ever been outside of Ha Giang is Hanoi—and only once. It really hits me once again how lucky we are to travel the world like this. It’s not something to take for granted, and we should be more conscious of that.Lue lisää