Ha Giang Loop - almost to China by motorbike

24.5.

After a week alone in HCMC, because Alina was in Thailand to extend her visa, we set off on another little trip. This time, however, I'm starting it alone in the middle of the night because my flight leaves HCMC for Hanoi at 4:55 a.m.

First, I tried to take an earlier flight at the wrong boarding point - well, I noticed. When I arrived in Hanoi, I noticed that I was the only tourist, purely from the outside. So that's how it is with domestic travel in another country.

Soon after, I see two casual acquaintances from the airport in HcMc again: Nano and Benicilia from Argentina. They are travelling around for 3 months and have just come from New Zealand.

Then an hour later Alina arrives. We take the bus into the city center despite the imploring (absolutely annoying) voices from all corners: “TAXI! Taxi!! Grab!?!”

It is green here outside the city. They have lots of flowers (pink oliander, blooming mimosas in bright orange-red, - it looks very beautiful at first. A gigantic bridge suddenly appears - the Nhat Tan Bridge - and leads over the Hong River into the city. At first glance, Ha Noi seems more charming than HCMC. But unfortunately we don't have much time and only have a Banh mi for breakfast before we continue on to our bus station. D

The bus is absolute luxury. We lie in sleeping cabins with curtains, we can even lie down together in one, there is a large window with a blind and WiFi. It is definitely a great trip. The landscape passes by us, we chat and exchange stories about the last few days. Alina tells us about Thailand and I tell us about my week in Ho Chi Minh. In between we have a few Orios and a banana and we sleep a little.

We are both pretty tired but when we get to the hostel we are one thing above all: hungry!! Luckily we can order easy pizza and it tastes really good :) We spend the first night in one of Mama's homestays. Mama's is the organization with which we will do the Ha Giang Loop. We already meet a few people here, mostly Dutch, one German, 2 Australians and we also hear of a few French people. So it's already a colorful bunch.

The adventure begins the next morning. We are picked up at the homestay at 8 a.m. by moped drivers with our luggage and dropped off at the main building 3 minutes away. What initially sobers us all up is the weather. It's pouring with rain. Of course, we didn't rule it out somewhere, but right from the start it's intimidating. Alina and I are also a bit overwhelmed by the mass of people that have gathered here in a large hall. It's so crowded - this place is also absolutely touristy, mainly Europeans, I would estimate maybe around 100 people?

What's crazy is that these tours start every day. Every day is chaos...

In one of the large rooms, all the enthusiastic Loop riders are served breakfast. The menu does not change over the next few days. A Banh Mi (baguette) topped with egg, tomato and cucumber, and if you want, you can also get a terrible Nestle coffee packet or a bitter Lipton tea. In the room next door, payment is made, T-shirts with a Loop motif are handed out and rain caps are sold. There are also two pool tables, which some of those waiting soon use. It drags on and we wait for a long time, exchanging a few words with other people here, eating melon and staring out into the rain. More and more of the obvious riders are gathering there, already prepared in rain caps.

After a final briefing shortly before 10am outside, where everyone sits on chairs facing a kind of stage where the map of the loop hangs and a woman with a microphone briefly presents the process, it finally starts. They have 7 groups and call out the names one by one. Alina and I are in group 1 and are assigned to drivers who immediately greet us, hand us helmets and take us to their motorbikes. Our drivers are called Hai (Alina) and (Sam) Laura. Neither of them speaks or understands English, so we only communicate using a few words in Vietnamese or via Google Translate, which occasionally offers really funny translations.

For example, Hai once said to Alina: “Sit close on the moped and go back to your roots.”

By the way, we assumed he meant that Alina should sit close to the driver and lean into the curves.

The journey began in the middle of the rain and the group was wrapped in plastic ponchos, rain suits and plastic gaiters, but soon our destination appeared in the distance. What at first seemed like an unfortunate circumstance was the best weather we could have had. The mist-shrouded mystical mountains appeared in front of us. Green fluffy hills with individual tall trees rising out of them, giving the whole thing a touch of Pandora from the film Avatar, or let's just compare it to a beautiful jungle mountain range. We still went through the city on larger roads lined with the mimosas in bloom with their glowing rotors (just as beautiful), but soon we came to the first hairpin bends. The loop mostly leads through the hilly mountains on hairpin bends and in the evening back down into the valley to spend the night in smaller towns.

We found the landscape breathtaking and magnificent and it was great to ride the motorbike. What neither Alina nor I were thrilled about, however, were the many stops on the tour. We had barely driven a few kilometres when we made our first stop. Of course, many in the group wanted exactly that: a great view, a viewing point and lots of photos. And now and then maybe a cold drink, a coffee or an ice cream. But the stops were a bit too numerous, especially on the first day, and Alina was annoyed that we couldn't finally ride a long distance in one go. This may also have been due to the crowds gathering at one spot again. Group 1 consisted of around 8-10 people, but here 3-4 groups always came together and everyone took photos, chatted and turned the sometimes idyllic, quiet places into tourist spots.

Nevertheless, the landscape was truly incredible. Imposing rock formations were dramatically shrouded in mist. Wild flowers grow along the roadsides, which are sometimes collected by small children and teenagers and braided into their hair for a tip - at least that's what we experience at one of the spots where our drivers stop with us and a busy group of children, all dressed in colorful clothes, with make-up and bouquets of flowers, run towards us and try to take each of us by the hand and get us excited about this activity.

At these stops, you can always find all kinds of soft drinks, snacks and souvenirs. It seems as if tourism has now left its mark on the country. People wait for the streams of people on their mopeds and offer their wares. I wonder if they have become dependent on it. The flower children in particular don't even go to school, but they have a few English phrases in their repertoire that initially impress many visitors.

I find the green terraces of rice and corn fields that stretch up the hills in terraces far more fascinating. They are sometimes so steep, but somehow they have to be cultivated, which means that the residents climb up there. Houses and villages here are mostly very isolated and remote, only in the valleys are they a little more spread out and there is construction going on everywhere. It is not large companies or construction vehicles that can be seen, but individuals or groups, all of them creating so much themselves, there is a lot of handicraft in the village - be it wood, metal or clothing. And the daily, often physically difficult tasks are carried out by both men and women - with many women wearing colorful, traditional clothing and can be spotted from a long way away in every corn field.

Alina and I had decided from the start to only do the loop for 3 days, as our time was limited, it wasn't cheap and we wanted to try to see Halong on the last day. As most people doing the loop did 4 days, it ended up that we, Alina and I and our drivers, set off half an hour earlier on the last day and left the others. Suddenly we were in the middle of a private tour and were almost amazed at how quietly we could suddenly enjoy the view and the loop. It was probably also a bit funny to take a break in cafes with just Sam and Hai and awkwardly exchange things via Google Translate (not that we understood everything) or wash our hands with them in the river or understand why we suddenly had to wait half an hour around midday. It turned out that there were one or two more people like us who were only doing the loop for 3 days and with whom we met up for dinner.

Well, in the end it was definitely a very good time and we arrived back at the headquarters exhausted on the afternoon of the 3rd day, where we had to wait a little over 3 1/2 hours for our bus to Halong. We took another shower in the homestay nearby and ordered a pizza, which I unfortunately didn't like very much, before it got darker and we were finally able to get on the sleeper bus at around 7:45 p.m.

*** Here is a summary of what we saw on the tour in Ha Giang:

On the first day :

- Dong Van Karst Plateau viewpoint

- Heaven gate

- Short hiking to visit Angel couple Hill

- Nam Dam village for lunch

- Pine Tree Forest.

- Yen Minh Homestay

On the second day we see China from our pass and the border that runs between the two countries along the steep hills.

- Lung Cam Village

- Stunning viewpoint

- Lung Cu Flag Tower

- Guest house in Dong Van

On the third day of the loop, a highlight is the Ma Pi Leng Pass, a towering mountain pass that offers breathtaking views of the valleys below and the winding Nho Que River.

- Ma Pi Leng Pass

- Short hike to Died Cliff Viewpoint

- Meo Vac, Ta Lung and Mau Due Villages

- Lung Tam Village

***

sequel follows