Days 96-99: 2/22-25/24 - The Ha Giang Loop
2/22
Waking up and questioning what we were doing, we enjoyed the provided breakfast, and attempted to listen to the briefing of our ride. The majority of the riders were there for 2 or 3 day tours, but we had opted for the 4 day tour. Our group would ride with the 2 and 3 dayers for the first day, but split off for the remaining three. Our group consisted of: Kaia, myself, Ben (a brit whose brother worked at a hostel in Hanoi), Line (a Dane who knows the lyrics to every song since 1990), and Juliette (an uno hustler). Our drivers were Ding, Vinh, —-, and 2 —--, and would be as central to our enjoyment as the views.
The Ha Giang loop. Only opened for tourism in 2011, the Ha Giang loop is a ~400km loop around a province in northern Vietnam. The roads are mostly finished but include a fair amount of dirt and mid-construction roads. The views are surreal. The under 60000 inhabitants are members of over 20 ethnic groups.
Our days would consist of riding for a couple of hours before and after lunch, stopping for views and occasionally a more involved visit. I’ll mostly let the pictures (and captions) do the talking.
Less than a minute into our inaugural ride, we are questioning what we have signed up for!
2/23
After breakfast, we rode up the Chinese border, and my 22 year old driver hurled taunts across the valley at the Chinese border guards.
After lunch we rode down into a valley for a river cruise, but boy oh boy was the ride down terrifying. Our previous most death-defying maneuver (more terrifying than death-defying as only one tourist has died on the Ha Giang loop and they were driving themselves) had been racing (probably 20-30 mph max) along a single lane dirt track road with sheer cliff drop to the left and sheer cliff face to the right. The route down to the river (what we would later learn was called “death road”) was a narrow track barely wide enough for the wheel with more switchbacks than felt possible. Pitched forward at what felt like 30 percent grade, the apex of each turn involved the drivers using their feet to reposition the bike. The pace was slow enough that I never believed we were in real danger, but it was definitely the tightest I gripped the bike.
After our return and dinner, we walked out to the old town and joined in a public dance party in the town square before turning in for the night.
That horizontal cut on the mountain is actually a road with a fence, separating Vietnam from China!
2/24
The gray from the previous day had descended to our level (or maybe we had climbed to it) and thus we set off with ponchos, rain pants, and booties to cover us entirely. It is not uncommon for the beautiful vistas of Ha Giang to be covered in gray, and having had the previous two beautiful days made it easier to stomach that most of the viewpoints we spent playing uno instead.
At our home stay that evening, we took a quick jaunt to jump into a watering hole fed by a waterfall, even though the cold scared the rest of our crew away. That evening was filled with “happy water”, karaoke, and more uno.
The latest in fashion.
Vinh was an incredible driver! Would recommend.
A usually swamped waterfall pool with many spots to jump from was mostly empty in the rain and cold
2/25
Still covered in clouds, we did get some beautiful views of partially obstructed mountains. It was also equal parts terrifying and wildly entertaining to watch cars and bikes and cows materialize on the road going the other direction mere meters ahead of us.
We stopped in a Hmong village to learn about hemp weaving and picked up some pieces, played lots of uno at lunch, and slept for most of the van ride back to Hanoi upon our return to the start.
Here a 99 year old woman uses molten wax to block off portions of fabric that will then be dyed, leaving the blocked regions untouched (final products behind her).
As we came back down from the mountains, there were still many beautiful views despite the cloud cover.
Our bus was a party bus by look only. Everyone was dead tired!