Ha Giang Motorcycle Loop

We had read that the best way to see the far north of Vietnam near the China border was by doing the Ha Giang Motorbike Loop.

We took an arduous bus journey to the little town of Ha Giang (the base for said adventure) and set out to rent some motorbikes but quickly got a dampener when we were told that an international car license would not suffice, an international motorbike license was required and there would definitely be police checks along the way.

After a bit of deliberation we decided to go for the “easy rider” option. This means we each would be sitting on the back of the motorbike between our experienced local drivers and our luggage strapped to the back of the bikes. This rather uncomfortable position quickly lead to stiff backs and sore bums but the experience and the views more than made up for it! And our guides were able to drive on little off-the-beaten-path side roads and show us some sights that we would have never discovered on our own.

While Hadleigh used to refer to motorbike riders as “temporary citizens” we have both come to understand the fascination and appeal of riding a motorbike. The sense of freedom, the wind in your face, you get to smell the burning woodfires as you drive through the villages and you feel the temperature change as you descend in altitude. An American guy we chatted to had the following analogy: Driving through this landscape in a car is like seeing it on a TV screen. When you are on a motorbike, you are REALLY THERE.

To be fair though, there were plenty of moments where I was holding my breath as my driver dodges water buffalos, stray dogs and running children as he speeds through little hamlets at 70km/h. It made me think of how one has to always slow down to 30-50km/h in Switzerland as you approach any sort of residential area and the contrast seems pretty comical.

On our drive over the course of 5 days, we got to see the jawdropping scenery of the far northern mountains with green karsts forming the illusion of a dragons tail on the horizon. We explored big waterfalls and hidden caves, we visited some Hmong tribal villages, learned about Hemp weaving and on one graphic occasion saw a dog being butchered with a cleaver in the local market. We also made it to the northernmost point in Vietnam and saw the heavily fortified border to China.

Our nights were spent at “homestays” (you cannot really call them homes, in reality they are guesthouses specifically built for travellers but they do still have a bit of an intimate or rustic feel about them). In the evening all the different travellers staying there would gather in the courtyard and eat dinner together, followed by many many shots of “happy water” (ergo some very potent rice wine) and usually karaoke. The Vietnamese LOVE their karaoke and on many occasions we have wandered past somebodys house in the middle of the day to see a person sitting in their living room by themselves singing karaoke at the highest volume possible.

As thankful as our sore bodies were when we finished the loop after 5 days, we were also sad to see this awesome adventure come to an end. In hindsight we kind of lamented the fact that we had not bought motorbikes for the duration of our time in Vietnam and travelled around the entire country in this fashion (initially we thought we had too much luggage for that, but the Vietnamese manage to tie ANYTHING to their motorbikes. Several gas bottles, entire stalls of fresh flowers, a freshly butchered pig etc etc. One traveller told us he saw a guy who had installed an entire aquarium with live fish and a water-circulating system on the back of his bike and goes around selling fresh fish. So we probably would have found a way 😊) Maybe next time.