Ha Giang-Extreme North Motorbike Loop(Vietnam)

Where? Ha Giang is a province in the north east region of Vietnam. Near China borders.

What? Extreme North Motorbike Loop is going through mountains and villages, where a lot of ethnic minorities live.

How? It lasts three or four days and you're riding on motorbikes.

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Day one- Shock

We went to Ha Giang from the capital city of Vietnam, Hanoi. I was still deeply in shock of this unknown landscape, but Sam, who had been here for two month long internship was very patient and enjoyed every little thing with me. However, the transport we chose was also novelty for him. I realised that returning home to classical bus will be bitter. Sleeper bus was absolutely amazing. It was bus with 45 places for lying down instead of normal seats. Although they were short for us it was thousands times more comfortable than sitting for 8hours. I was sleeping for almost whole time. There was another foreigner next to us. Sam started to talk with him and later he became our partner for this extreme trip.

In Ha Giang they were prepared for tourists. In moment when we got off the bus they offered us bikes. Prices were approximately the same everywhere so it wasn’t important where we were going to rent it. But we wanted specific bike. After demanding choice of motorbike, Sam himself looked like he knows a lot about it, while I was sitting in rental agency and waiting for dinner, we agreed with Finlay (our English partner from bus) to meet in front of agency in the morning. The motorcycle that handled our stuff and both of us was about ten euros per day. Finally we went out for a promised dinner and Bia Hoi.

Cháo Gá is a rice soup. The best way to describe it is overcooked rice. We were eating it in small restaurant right on the street, sitting on low plastic chairs. Cuz that’s what real Vietnamese restaurant looked like. You could find them on every second step. And the step, which was not a restaurant, was a shop. They all offer the same thing. There had never been anybody else than us but still they all worked and were always fresh. After eating we moved to the pub that looked exactly the same. Instead of kettles with boiling soups there were refrigerators full of Bia Hoi.

Bia Hoi- Beer

Bia Hoi is traditional Vietnamese beer. It’s not originally from Vietnam but it became national drink. They are cooking it every morning and they keep it in a barrel which then goes to pubs. It is fresh beer that did not pass through pasteurization. They are selling it in one or two litre jar, of course it is plastic. They have to drink it in the same day as it is made. It was brought to Vietnam by Czechs as part of socialist exchange. It became popular during the shortage of material cuz for this beer there was no need to use the containers for its preservation. It only has three percent but I would definitely not underestimate.

If you feel like hard tailored drinker which is able to drink three or four beers and few spirits of Vodka or Borovička, you’re going to be weak here. They drink their litre, two or three litres and they are still able to ride their motorbikes. But you will find out, that in this climate you’re finished after one round and if you’re lucky you will find your way to the hotel.

I give one to this beer, A+ or thumbs up. It’s fresh with bubbles and bitter. And of course it can make you dance and feel just alright.

Day Two- First day

We met Finlay in front of the rental agency, where we left our backpacks. We only took few most important things to the trunk of motorbike. We also took our tent and sleeping back. We really hoped we would be able to use it. I had map in my hands and helmets on. So finally we were ready to leave the civilization and head to the mountains. After while we found out that it will be something over 400km and it should last for three of four days. The road was really difficult to ride but I was calmly sitting in back, enjoying this magnificient view. I was silently thinking about how grateful I was towards Sam, my amazing skilful driver. We climbed and we descended. All over again. It was hard to accept all that beauty and process it. It is hard to even write about it now. Once in while I had little shock when truck or bus went against us. Whole road went through villages and few bigger cities, so we stopped for warm lunch. Portions were always so big that it was impossible to eat it all. Big part of my lunch went to Sam, and it didn’t change for the rest of our Vietnam trip.

These incredible karst hills surrouned us on each side. Sam declared that it was kind of oppressive. On every side, as far as we could see, there was nothing else than mountains. And this scenery didn’t change ever after dozens of miles. For me the most beautiful part of the day were children. Some of them didn’t even know how to walk properly, some of them in school age. But always with big smile on their faces. I wasn’t holding anymore, (please Mom if you’re reading this don’t be mad). Both of my hands were outspread. I tried to give high five to every kid but it was impossible. For a while I really wished for more time to spend with them. But we had to continue so at least I tried to smile on every one of them, wow them. After we left they run home to show off to their parents and friends that they met foreigners. It was really heart-warming.Less positive was that sun was really strong. I felt like chicken in oven. Although I later regretted that I had not appreciated the beautiful sunny weather, the first day I had been cursing a lot. We're burning and spitting. When I wanted to catch Sam, it's almost impossible because we were slippery as fish. In the evening I already felt it was a long day. I was hungry, burned from sun and tired. But on the other side we were really happy. Finlay slept in homestay. We decided to use our tent. We built it in front of homestay, near river. We ordered some beer and that was finish line for us. We were able to eat some food but right after dinner we went to sleep.

Day Three- Second day

Morning was completely mystical. Sam took some pictures while I was still getting some extra minutes of sleeping in tent. And then again on motorbikes. Sam started to feel changes caused by the harsh revelation of a biker. On every side were surprisingly hills on which were rice fields. At home I had been always complaining that I had to water /flood flowers now I realized I had no right to complain.

There were two options. We could go directly or take a walk to the northern point of Vietnam. On its hill there is a tower with a giant flag. In Vietnam it’s normal to pay entrance fee everywhere. It’s not a big amount of money, just a symbolic. In exchange for it, everything is clean and organized. There are always clean public toilets and small snack shop. Everything looked perfect, like from some kind of fairy tale so we didn’t notice storm in the nearby valley. And because it was rainy season in Vietnam, we knew what it meant. So we just sat on the bikes and tried to get to the end point of the second day. That was supposed to be Dong Van town. But we knew that weather forecast for another day was ever worse so we tried to get as far as we could. Roads began to be really dangerous. Finlay even fell down from motorbike. We had to do some small repairs on the place.

Finally we managed to arrive to the smaller town, fortunately without major injuries. We stayed at the motel cuz weather was getting worse and worse. As you can see in the picture we went to local pub for some beer. We met some locals who didn’t understand what we were talking about and of course we didn’t either. But it was fine, cuz we were all nice people and we were open minded and wanted to communicate with each other. If somebody tells you trăm trong trăm, it means bottoms up! Literally it means one hundred percent from one hundred. And you have to do this with everyone, if you want to be polite. Because it means you have shown mutual respect. Okay we were really drunk this night. No is not an answer. After this round I tried to hide my glass and I was repeating: I have no idea where my glass is, sorry.

Day Four- Third day

Unfortunately we didn’t manag to get many photos from last day, because it was raining a lot. I tried to protect camera from water. With pride I can say the camera was the only dry thing we had. We were literally red from rain and it was hitting us so hard that sometimes I was screaming inside from pain. We went 100 kilometers in this rain. At the end we finished in rental agency. We had nothing left to do just say thank you and good bye to Finlay, our faithful partner for this adventure.

Ha Giang was wonderful experience that I cannot really describe with words. If someone asks me in future I know that I won’t be able to give them every detail of this trip. But I know that I will be able to say that for few days I was in different world. In world where I would not have a chance to survive, cuz work was harder than we can even imagine and living conditions rougher than we have. But still it was untouched and rare world.

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💡HINTS AND TIPS💡

Transport🛵

✓Motorbike- If you are going to the extreme loop you will propably borrow the motorbike. It’s always for the whole day so you can borrow it earlier and you can move around the city on it. If you are going to ride just in city, I recommend you the cheapest one. But if you’re going to the mountains you will definitely need to think about it more. We were in this rental agency and we were satisfied with it. http://qtmotorbikesandtours.com.vn/motorbikes-for-rent/ They gave us some tips and useful maps.

✓Taxi- If you need to get from the station to the centre, you can use the taxi service. By some miracle, they are not trying to deceive you in this area. They have a classical tax meter, so you can even check it out nicely.

✓ By foot- Well to be honest it is not far from station to city centre so you can walk there. You won’t be tired from it and you’re will be sitting on bike for another three days so you should enjoy that you don’t have to sit for a while.

Accomodation🛏

✓ City- just try to use booking.com. Check out the prices. You don’t have to book it ahead. There will be place for you and it’s a little bit cheaper this way. If you really want to travel low cost don’t forget to tell them that you don’t need a window.

✓ During loop- If you’re going on extreme loop, you will definitely have a map in your pocket. They have it at every rental place. On this map you have marked every homestay and other accomodations. In homestay you can also get a dull course dinner with authentically feeling.

✓ Tent- There is almost no place for you to build tent. We used it once. Every piece of land belongs to someone and there are rice fields everywhere.

Food🍴

✓ Cháo Gá- Rice soup. Basically overcooked rice with broth. They add some vegetables and meat. It was fine but definitely not the best one from what we tried in Vietnam. But it’s supposed to be super healthy.

✓ Maggots- You can try these little insects. I have to admit that I avoided this experience but Sam did. And he said that it’s nothing special.

✓ Specialties with beer- If you try Bia Hoi(TRY IT!) you should eat some snack with it. For example peanuts, rice cracker or even meat noodles that are made in leaves. Definitely worth trying it.

Permit YES or NO?📝

✓ Even though on some pages you can find that you need to have permit for this it's not true. We didn't have it and nobody wanted it from us. We asked few locals about it, but they also claimed it is not needed.

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