Going to Ha Giang

I kept hearing about the famous Ha Giang Loop from fellow travellers, which is how I decided to check it out for myself.

After the delay in contacting me, things are working out so far, luckily.

I took a Grab to an alleged bus stop in Hanoi, which was actually the office of the bus company. Apart from a few other people sitting in there, no staff was around for 15 minutes.
After a while they appeared and checked our names off a list.

Then we finally entered the bus. It was a sleeper bus with cabins - like a capsule hostel on wheels.

Upon entering, I was carrying a bag with the free “breakfast” my hostel had supplied me with for three days - which I had always skipped because I wasn’t big on a bag of deep-fried nuts and a dry pastry for breakfast.

The bus driver said no, I was not allowed to board with that. I was a little puzzled. This was a 6-hour bus ride and you can’t bring a snack? I kept checking to make sure this wasn’t a case of miscommunication. But it was getting crystal clear. I had to leave my snacks at the front of the bus.

I wasn’t actually on board with that. I had hardly eaten anything in the past few days and I wasn’t going to go without food for another 6 hours.

I snuck back to my bag under the pretense of getting a drink from there. (I was stopped immediately and told to drink outside - it was getting ridiculous. Since when can’t you drink? We weren’t even driving yet!)

So I drank outside and slipped a bag of nuts into my pocket.

I felt so devious. 😁

While the bus wasn’t too big on hygiene, being able to lie down during a bus ride - bliss!
Initially, I tried to edit and write for a bit, but quickly learned it was kinder on my stomach to just lie back and nap.

After about three hours, we had a pit stop where we were indeed allowed to buy snacks. All highly processed stuff - so I wasn’t into that either. While the others were busy shopping, I snuck back to my bag at the front and clandestinely exchanged the bags of food with trash so it wouldn’t look out of order.

It worked. I took my scavenged snacks back into my cabin and closed the curtain. Mischief Managed.

Now, the maddening part: all the other passengers had gotten their own snacks from the shop - bags of crisps, cookies and whatnot. They ate it out in the open on the bus and sipped from their cans of soda.

Nobody batted an eye. I was outraged.

And slept some more.

Eventually, I was dropped at my homestay in Ha Giang - a private house that turned the upper floors into private rooms and a dorm, newly renovated.

I was the only guest - I loved it there!

The dorm was comfortable, modern, and had privacy curtains.

Plus, the lady who owns the place with her husband was very kind and talkative. This was one of the rare instances where someone was happy to chat and spoke some English.
She recommended a restaurant to me where you could order a dish that let you make your own fresh spring rolls/summer rolls.

I started with the first one and then just gave up and downed the ingredients separately. 😁

I was surprised how tired I was at the end of the day - considering I spent most of it sleeping. 😁Read more