Day 104: driving until it gets dark

Today we had the third and final section of the Ha Giang Loop on our agenda. After leaving the city, we steadily climbed up the mountain until we caught our first glimpse of a huge gorge. This gorge is the largest in Southeast Asia and was truly impressive. We drove along the gorge for a while, navigating countless small curves. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't very stable today and we got a little drizzle from time to time. After leaving the Ha Giang Loop to continue heading east, we didn't come across any other travelers and once again had the feeling that there weren't too many tourists around here. Our original goal today was to reach the city of Cao Bang, but we didn't make as much progress as we had thought and had to look for a hotel in a smaller town 50 km before. Fortunately, we found something, because driving in the dark would have been quite dangerous.