North east coast - Bai Tu Long bay

Vietnam - North-East Coast -  cca 550 km

Cao Bang - Tien Yen via Lang Son - Van Don via Cam Pha - Quan Lan - Ha long - Hanoi via Hai Phong

Entering Bai Tu Long Bay

With brand new sport crank shaft made in Viet Nam we were flying again ! The road was less hilly from now on and if there was less trucks it would be quite enjoyable ride. Some 40 kms after Cao Bang we entered section of road works. That stretched for maybe an hour, dirt and rocks on the road covered with thick layer of limestone dust. Every vehicle coming in opposite direction created white cloud formed of tiniest dust particles.

Face mask would be handy on this road for sure. Having none, we tried to breath less and slowed down even more. Somewhere close to the end of road work, our chain jumped off again. In first town to come we stopped at mechanics shop and got persuaded to change both the chain and chain wheels. Another 200.000 VND invested wisely. These parts claimed to be made in Thailand :)

Around 20 kms ahead of Lang Son we first time ever experienced traffic on the busiest road in Vietnam.

Highway 1 stretches from Chinese to Cambodian border below Ho Chi Min city, making it vital artery for both passenger and goods transportation. American size trucks, buses, building machines and many smaller size vehicles are howling up and down with non stop verve.

There are very simple rules you need to follow on Vietnamese roads.

Following general rules apply :

1. There is enough space on the road only for the biggest of us.
The bigger, the better, if you ride motorbike, you are expected to get off the road when bigger is overtaking the biggest. They will tell you with strong light and sound signal that they’re coming :)

2. It’s not my business what is happening behind me.
Most of motorbikes don’t have even one mirror and rarely turn the head to have a look before they do next move !

3. Driver turning right from any kind of road has all the time right of the way.
Only fraction of drivers will look left before joining roads.

4. Driving direction is not fixed
In theory you should ride on the right side of the road, in practice expect people everywhere. It’s not uncommon to meet building truck on the highway in opposite direction, maximum shortening of distances is very present.

All the time leave little bit of space on your right side for others coming opposite direction.

5. Blow the horn and keep your speed!
To inform you’re coming rather than to tell that something is wrong. Expect very loud blasts from big trucks and buses. Stay calm and keep riding, they will pass in short time.

Don’t expect that someone would ever stop on crossroads, keep slow speed, blow the horn and join the flow.

Additional rule for dual carriage roads:

6. Going right means going left !!!
Truck indicating change of direction to right will turn across the whole road and possibly block all lanes. You’re the one to see that happening in front of you, you’re responsible for slowing down.

You learn all of these rules progressively, depending on the road you take :)
From our own experience mountain roads are much quieter with few exceptions.
You go faster on flat land, but the traffic is tougher so it’s little bit more tiring.

In Lang Son we grabbed street kebab on one of the main crossroads, got little bit lost and found at the end ;) We’re headed direction to Ha Long and Bai Tu Long bays.

Passing lowland areas east of Lang Son until last light when we reached Tien Yen, small agglomeration of houses in the crossroad.

Small and definitely not the cleanest guest house right on the crossroad served as our sanctuary for a night.

Little bit overpriced but quite tasty food, Tien Yen does the job for overnight but there isn’t much more to do than eat and sleep :)

Next morning we set off direction to Cam Pha and further to Van Don which is in the heart of Bai Tu Long Bay.

Bai Tu Long Bay was advised by some people we met travelling as astonishing and very similar to Ha Long Bay but much less touristic and not crowded.

Cam Pha is famous for biggest coal quarry in Asia. And it’s not small indeed, for many kilometers you pass mountains of black coal being ripped apart by heavy machinery and moved to industrial areas around.

Environment impact is more than palpable ! Black grey dust settled on everything around.
Tough dust particles hit you right in your nostrils and stay glued inside.

Anyway we stopped on the outskirts to get Banh My into our starving stomachs and moved further toward Van Don.

Little town with busy port area dealing mainly with molluscs production in surrounding waters around sharp limestone islands. Perfectly calm sea between the islands proofed to be amazing feeding grounds for mussels. There are floating villages maintaining this long running process and selling them further to traders on main land.

Tasty buckets

Mussel farms protected by stone dog

We arrived still quite early and rolled our Hwin Dee directly to the end of main pier. We didn’t expect much attention but that was wrong assumption :)

Choose your destination

Within few seconds we got surrounded by crowd of people all trying to persuade us to take their boat and go somewhere :) We’d go for sure, but not knowing where to go in first place we wrote down the locations they were offering and promised to come back next day.

The sky was still white and grey but standing on the sandy beach again, after 2 months inland, makes you feel happy.

Dragon teeth all around

We followed main road out of the bustling centre towards the end of the island and finally you could see lot of sharp rocks jagging out of the bay from quite close proximity.

Fully loaded

Surrounded by rice paddies and salt production pools one can get lost on small tracks discovering paths which might lead somewhere just to find out they don’t :)

Lucky, this path led to secret beach

Couple of long white sand beaches are to be found further north on the road just before you reach Chinese influenced Buddhist temple.

View of Bai Tu Long Bay from Van Don beach

View from the top of Buddhist temple

We spent rest of the day discovering little bit around, looking for secret beaches and drinking Ha Long beer with locals on the road :)

Bia Ha Long

In the evening we did some research for next day island trip. We chose Quan Lan island for 2 reasons - 1. it was closer than Co To, 2. supposedly there are some of the longest white sand beaches in Vietnam.

Dramatic surroundings around the beaches

Where is that hidden treasure ?

Getting up with dawn was easier than we thought, and we managed to catch first ferry around 7.30. We planned to spend max. 2 nights on the island and come back on Sunday to get to Ha Long for Monday morning.

From the mountains to the beach

and further

After 2 hours of slow cruise firstly deep through inner Bai Tu Long bay and later through open sea we reached tiny jetty on the island.

Rock solid brand new boat

Karsts from the water

Real fun just started - unloading on Quan Lan island

Being one of the most east located islands in whole bay it receives strong winds which formed massive dune systems along the whole east coast.

Rat in Bai Tu Long bay

Little sleepy town called Quan Lan is just few kms north of the jetty and it’s connected by deserted tarmac road.

Watch out for heavy traffic !

There is actually just one road on the island :) connecting northern end (another tiny jetty can be found here) with southern end jelly fish production factory.

Jelly fish port on the southern part of the island

Couple of guest houses are aligned along the main 2 streets in the town, we chose first one which looked new and open :)

Price was very reasonable and there was an offer of home cooked dinner. What a great future ! Homestay food surpasses any other meals by miles !

Forget Michellin stars, Vietnam stars is what's all about ! - Spring rolls and mussels :) 

We dropped the bags and went to explore the beaches !

Almost all of the east coast is covered by sandy beaches. Now and then they are separated by rocky capes. Wide with big tides difference, hard packed and squishy white sand, most of the rubbish blown into dunes behind the beach, it looked cleaner than it was in reality.

Vast tidal beach

Unfortunately it was still just around 12 degrees so it wasn’t really inviting for a dip. I can imagine that in high season when local tourists swarm the island it has to look much different.

Traditional fishermen - Vietnam style

During our visit we’re literally alone. Only when we’re leaving the island we spotted group of young foreigners who just arrived.

SUP Vietnam style - polystyrene block

We filled the day with full exploration of the island, sand quarries, jelly fish processing plant, all beaches and 2 old temples. At the end of the day we got little bit lucky again and on the way back from the southern end of the island our head gasket blew up again. With raging sound and almost no torque we just managed to get back to the town.

Perfect place to try how this bike actually works :)

Isolated places like this can proof to be tricky when you need to get something fixed.

One bike repair guy was out of the town, supposedly coming back at night, car repair place didn’t have tools small enough for our tiny engine and it looked like the guys are better friends with blowtorch than with spanners :)

We gave them a chance but after 10 minutes of watching them I had to take over, stop their mission with thanks, but no thanks. We left their open air workshop with few screws and exhaust off to discover that there is another bike repair guy further down the main street.

Half rolling half pushing the bike we reached the pit stop, trying to explain to young guy what’s wrong. English is not really known in these lands and usual point it communication didn’t seem to make an effect. The guy was pretty sure that the trouble is with spark cable and possibly somewhere else much deeper and was trying to push us away to come back in 3 hours.

As a reply I took his spanners and in 3 minutes stripped down the head from cylinder and showed him blown gasket !

Finally the understanding was on the table :)

During his earlier check of spark plug he damaged spark plug cable so it had to be replaced at the end ...

Finally we got to the last step, reaching payment agreement. Surrounded by dozen of local teenagers it wasn’t easy either. Some ridiculous number like 10 USD was mentioned and that didn’t hit fertile ground :)

After little argument we paid 5 USD which was still little bit too much for the whole action, but it got us back on the road again.

Percebes where you wouldn't expect them

Second day we got our laundry done after quite long period.
Around 9 AM our land lady came pointing her finger into clothes basket, we understood very well.

For almost a month we’re travelling through dirt and dust of tough northern provinces and our clothes looked far away from clean :) Obviously it has been spotted and had to be dealt with :)

With strong wind blowing all day it was all dry within few hours, what a nice feeling to be in clean clothes for a change :) - it usually doesn’t last longer than a day :)

The rest of the day was dedicated to long walk on deserted beach :)

After 2 amazing dinners in our little guest house we’re ready to head back to main land early in the morning.

On the way back to Van Don

Same crew, same ferry and same grey sky.

Who's the captain ?

Chinese chess - at this point we had no idea what's this game about

boat of Vietnam - Czech friendship

We got back to Van Don early in the afternoon and headed further 60 kms south to reach Ha Long city.

Boat towing a boat

Bai Tu Long floating village

Approaching Van Don

Our main goal for Ha Long was to extend our Visa by one month. We read on-line that it should be possible at Immigration office in every provincial capital.

Life on the board of mussel man house boat

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is ;) (Albert Einstein)

We’ve got to Immigration office even before they were opened so keen to get it done and head further south !

It’s been almost 2 months since we dealt with bureaucracy of Vietnamese apparatus. We forgot that it can be quite difficult mission.

Local officers were pretty straight forward and their message was quite clear - “No it’s impossible to get tourist visa extension here”.

We tried hard for 15 minutes but final result was negative.
We’re told that as holders of “Tourist Visa” we can either extend on our own in Hanoi at Immigration HQ or we have to have a sponsor (Tourist Agent).

We tried few little agencies located in main touristic area, but unfortunately with same result. It would take at least 10 days to get it done.

We didn’t believe that it can’t be done on our own and wanted to proof that even impossible can be made possible.

Even though we planned to skip Hanoi, now we had no other choice. We could either ride for 4 hours on a bike and join rush hour in crazy Hanoi traffic or there was an option to reach Hanoi by train from Hai Phong.

Astronauts are ready to take off into rainy universe

Drive to Hai Phong was pretty fast and we got there hour ahead of the train.
Compared with the cost of fuel, the train is expensive. We did it just to make our life easier, how naive :)

Plastic spaceship docking in front of Hai Phong train station - don't forget to drain your fuel and hide it well :)

Instead of reaching main train station in central Hanoi we got dropped on north east outskirts station with explanation that this is the last station where you can get your motorbike out, because this train doesn’t go all the way to main station. oops...

So there we were, somewhere ahead of us was Hanoi, sun was setting and traffic was getting more than crazy :)

All info we had at that point was that we have to cross Red river and we should be in central Hanoi :)

Following our orientation sense we got directly lost and the traffic was suddenly getting easier and at some point we’re alone on the road. That didn’t look like the right way to Hanoi.

So we asked and found out that we have to turn 180 degrees and head back :) Couple of minutes of crazy chaos, one long old bridge crossing and suddenly we were in central old town.

Buzzing with final success we looked for some cheaper place to stay and found Blue Hostel for 5 USD / head in dormitory. Not great, not too bad, it did the job for couple of nights.

With backpacks resting in our bed, motorbike parked and locked in front of the guest house we wandered off to night Hanoi. Thirsty and hungry. After long time without seeing tourists of same origins it fell quite pleasant to drink some beers and chat to random people.

That night we got little bit hammered - 25 watery beers cost us just 5 USD :)

Next adventures are covered in following posts.

Around Vietnam on motorbike - North West

Day 115 - 11/3/2016
An Khe - Southern central Vietnam

Dien Bien Phu - Tuan Giao - Muong Lay - Chan Nua - Sin Ho - Tam Duong - Ban Ho via Sa Pa (Homestay) - Bac Ha via Pho Lu - cca 600 km

Welcome to Vietnam !

Finally we’ve got to start writing about Vietnam.

It was little bit more than month ago when we crossed the border from Laos and submerged into hectic life of Vietnamese culture.

Nothing is impossible !

It all actually started already on the bus from Phongsali (link to previous post) where we slowly picked up approx. 45 people ( bus had 20 seats ) and in over crammed conditions we’re heading lightning fast through crazy mountainous roads. There were moments when the bus was swaying 40 degrees left and right and both of us stopped breathing for few moments as it would help to overcome the dangers...

We thought that all those people were Lao guys heading just to Muang Khoa or little bit further, but as we passed through all main stops the bus was still crowded same way. Some passengers had to stand for crazy 10 hours, leaning on each other. It was impossible to open side doors without reshuffling the crowd.

Fully loaded as inside as outside

They were all heading back home to Vietnam to celebrate Lunar New Year - Tet (link)! Now we know, so if you want to avoid similar situations just don’t go on any bus heading to Vietnam one week before the end of lunar year :)

Border crossing Tran Lay is in deep jungle forest at altitude around 1000 m so even though we didn’t expect to see more sunsets in Laos we were given one more !

If you have Vietnam visa already shining in your passport the process is smooth and fast. Stamp out on Laos side, 10 minute bus ride through no man's land and Vietnamese counter is waiting you in full communist power !

There is huge difference between Laos and Vietnam officers. While on Laos side, crowd surrounds the window to hand in the passport, people almost fighting each other to get to the window first, on Vietnamese side strict officers enforce proper queue ! Something more than unusual in Asia :) ( not that Vietnamese citizens would understand what it means, later coming guys were trying to either jump it all in once or at least to get half way in :)

In one window you get your visa checked and get stamped into the country and some 50 m further by the gate you show your passport to different officer who asks for chair money :)

I guess they would accept whatever currency in whatever reasonable amount, but because the visa got already super expensive we showed him no respect and with “No Dong, no Kip, visa expensive” we moved on ;) Not sure it would work all the time to be honest.

Soon after we got lower from the mountains unending purgatory started. Every 100 m bus stopped and one or two passengers got out. Each of them carrying at least 3 luggages strapped on top of the roof. Each stop didn’t take less than 10 minutes. In some way one starts appreciating strict European bus stops. After painful 2 hours on Vietnamese side we finally arrived to Dien Bien Phu (DBP).

In memory of fallen heroes !

There is few guest houses right opposite the bus station and after 11 hours of crazy bus ride we didn’t look further.

ATM is located just little bit up the main road (Vietin bank, Agribank and Vietcom bank don’t charge any fees while the limit is usually 2 000 000 VND).

Our first Pho for dinner and straight into the bed !

The famous Pho, you'll eat one at least once a day

Next morning there was serious challenge waiting for us !

It was the time to find Xe May (motorbike) !

Quick search online and there were plenty of bikes  available, but none in DBP. Oops !
No printed adverts around the hotels area either. Oops !

No problem, let’s have a look on the market first, eat some Pho, find a coffee and some bikes will pop up :)

Pho in market area was delicious and cheap (20 000 VND). Followed by coffee in one sided street and we fell ready for the mission.

Let’s ask locals :) So we started with the owners of the Cafe place. After 20 minutes of waiting, their friend arrived and brought us to main road opposite the airport strip.

There are few shops with both new and second hand bikes. Well new was out of our limits and all second hand available were scooter style ( semi or full automatic) and not really what we’re looking for !

Our aim was classic Honda Win 100cc - not manufactured by Honda anymore :(

With smile on our faces we thanked the guy and started walking the street in hope that we’d find something further up. After one complete circle of all shops on this road, the lucky fairy smiled at us and threw a guy in our way who asked us with good English whether we need a help :) We described our situation and what we’re looking for and he offered to give me a ride around the town to see what we can find.

Only stupid would not accept it !

It didn’t take that long and we parked in front of small garage with a dozen of second hand bikes parked in front of it. There it was, one bike which looked like Honda Win :))

Whoo Whoo, we might score !

After quick go on the main road, all basic stuff looked ok, 100 m down dirt road chain came off and that didn’t look good at all.

I got the chain back, no big issues, just dirty hands, but then the bike didn’t want to start again... After 10 minutes of kick starting I gave up and started pushing it back to the garage.

My hope of possible success was gone.

Some 500 m further I’ve tried again and this time I realised that I was holding clutch all the time before. Tra da ! The bike got back alive :)

Ok so not all hope was gone :)

I’ve asked to get the odometer changed, chain stretched, oil changed, handle bar tightened up
(as it rolled over while I was pushing it), put on 2nd mirror and then I agreed to pay price of 5 000 000 VND.

As I learnt later it was well overshot for local conditions, but it was around 250 USD, same price what most bikes where advertised online and those sold in the main centres as Hanoi or Saigon. If any local asks us the price we say 3 000 000 VND and they get quite surprise with such a good deal !

The guy originally started on 350 USD, so I thought that I made good deal, as we found much later this was just initial investment :)

All together it took just 4 hours and we had our transport !

We named it Hwin Dee - H(onda)win Dee (good in Tai).

Hit the road Hwin Dee !

It was missing one little upgrade and that was backpack rack extension, the original one was not big enough.

So we kept riding around the town and after more than hour we gave up as no one was willing to either make one or to bind something existing on top of what we had.

Well new year was approaching and that means long term holiday and a lot of drinking well before and well after the main day.

In the last garage I’ve found piece of furniture which fit perfectly on top of existing rack, so I grabbed it, strapped it with thick wire and it’s been working perfectly since then. Nothing like DIY !

There were still few things missing - chain to lock when parked overnight, bungees to strap our bags tight and last but definitely not least some comfy helmets !

The beauty of Asian markets is that you can find everything you need on one place :) Chain and bungees were really cheap, helmets price range is huge, depending whether you want plastic baseball cap or Darth Vader style one. Middle range was starting around 300 000 VND, after few minutes of trying and more minutes of negotiating we scored nice and fitting helmets. Altogether 600 000 VND.

At the end of all this crazy day we still managed to find bookshop and to buy road map of north western Vietnam, which was enough for more than 3 following weeks.

Afterwards we ran up one of the war memorial hills and caught last 10 seconds of sun disappearing behind the mountains on the border with Laos.

First sunset in Vietnam

Afterwards we were invited to a dinner in a house of a guy who helped me to buy our Hwin Dee for home made Lau and it was amazing experience :) duckling eggs, lot of rice wine and rice and noodles as much we could eat.

That was the end of our first full day in Vietnam, we’re ready to hit the road next morning in full power !

We woke up reasonably late, strapped all our luggage on the bike and kick the black horse to move forward. With all the weight sitting above back wheel, first 500 m were quite difficult.

It felt like riding a bicycle after 10 beers on empty stomach :) After few kms it felt little bit better and we slowly gained confidence.

Our first try to get off the main road and take back roads through the nature didn’t end that well. After some 20 kms, it looked like we reached really big village with wide streets and lot of traffic. In next 5 mins we started recognising surroundings. We’re back in DBP market area LOL. Oops !

So we tried again and this time we stuck to main road and were heading east to Tuan Giao.
It was cloudy cold day and within first half an hour we found out that our clothing was well underestimated.

Quick stop to warm up with hot tea in a shop by the road was necessary.

Our bike sounded almighty and we flew over first mountain pass with no troubles, except now and then when in 3rd gear the engine made funny noise, like the gear wanted to jump out. We didn’t pay any big attention to that as we knew that our Hwin Dee had some decent history and thought it’s just normal...

After couple of hours of riding we reached Tuan Giao, little town wedged between limestone mountains with busy main road where all life was happening. Here as well as in DBP and actually in all our northern journey, one could see hill tribe minorities colouring the road, around the Cho (market) ! The women dress colourful costumes and contrary to Thailand or Laos they are well proud to show it !

Bia Hoi to celebrate first safe arrival 

Little community guest house was our sanctuary for a night.

Tati was determined to buy additional jumper to prevent getting sick as the weather forecast didn’t look any warmer for next at least 5 days. Shopping at local market turned out to be quite a mission, as most of the jumpers were little bit to short and small for European size people.

At the end we found reasonably warm and big enough jumper carrying magic symbol 23 on the back.

After long sleep, strengthened by baguette with egg and bacon we set off for next adventures.

Joining road 6 little bit further above the town we slowly made our progress through rural villages surrounded by rice fields and limestone cliffs.

Yes this is Highway :)

Around 1 PM we stopped in Huoi Long village for quick coffee and visit of a cave (Dong) which was marked on the map. It turned out that the map was wrong and instead of right side of the road the cave was on the left side little bit before the village.

This time we didn’t venture too deep into the mountain and pushed further on our journey instead. Our goal for this day was to reach town of Muang Lay some 90 kms from Tuan Giao.

Somewhere half an hour after our cave stop we started noticing that it’s becoming harder to get into 3rd gear. Sometimes it worked fine, sometimes it just didn’t want to clap in... As long as it worked after few tries we kept going.

Half way through the road in a steep hill above tiny village, while in 2nd gear, our Hwin Dee started sounding ill and the gear was jumping out at free will. The result of that was chain off the wheel for first time. We returned back to the village, found first Xe May garage, stretched the chain and started diagnosing trouble with the gear. Result was not good. Supposedly our gearbox (Bo So) was ill and we were in need of replacement. Good news : 1st and 4th gear should still work fine, bad news they couldn’t fix it as they didn’t have the parts on stock.

Still the same highway :)

Advice was to keep going to Muang Lay or return to Dien Bien Phu. It was just 45 kms to Muang Lay so we pushed further.

But who would mind with this kind of views

Most of the journey was decently uphill and sometimes steep uphill. 1st gear worked fine, but you can’t go more than 10 km/h on it so we knew we’re in time trouble. Mountain pass of 1000 m ahead of us and then 10 km downhill. Hwin Dee was rattling like a small dog in snow storm. Patience was the key. After almost 2 hours we reached the pass and stuck to 4th gear on the way down. The vision of getting new gear box was holding our morale high !

Rice fields before Muang Lay dam

Muang Lay used to be town located on a river in deep valley. Used to be... These days it’s relocated ugly town on the bank of huge dam. From the top of the mountain it looks inviting. In reality it’s not.

Muang Lay could be pretty town, unfortunately it's not !

We found only one hotel and by bad luck it was hosting terrible karaoke party on the floor above us (Vietnamese people love karaoke btw). Food was really hard to find and finally mr Fix Everything who was scary but could speak some basic English, after 2 hours of doing Xe May magic figured out he can’t fix our baby as he doesn’t have the gearbox either. In the meantime he changed the clutch, cleaned the engine with petrol and changed the oil. His advice was to keep going direction to Lai Chau and 20 kms further there should be a village with another Xe May magicians who should be able to do the trick.

Not the best start of the day, but what can one do. We definitely didn’t want to get stuck there for longer. Another trouble we caused upon ourselves was the lack of local money. There was no working ATM in Muang Lay. Agribank was closed on Saturday morning as New Year day was coming following Monday. Oops.

At the end we got saved by mr Fix Everything who exchanged our Euro reserve with just a little bit unreasonable rate.

We packed our belongings and kicked Hwin Dee to another 1st and 4th gear mission. Within hour we reached village of Chan Nua and located a guy who was willing to help us fix the gearbox. His estimate was at least 3 hours of work and 900 000 VND. Steep but we had no other choice. Unfortunately his estimate was based on the assumption that he would work on it without interruption what was not the case at all.

Chan Nua is definitely nicer place to stay than Muang Lay

Every 20 minutes there was someone coming to get his flat tyre fixed or change the brakes or anything else. By 5 pm we checked into guest house which was just next to his shabby garage and prayed for his success.

I know what's wrong with it : "It's broken"

Good part of this nightmare was that we got invited to eat with his family and the food with beers was included in the fixing price. By 9 pm everything looked like it should be ready for final mount back to chasis and try on the road. How easy are things back in Europe, you come to garage they have brand new piece, take the old out, put new in and everything works fine... Not in Vietnam :) He was fiddling with different gear wheels for hours until he found the right match. Bad luck struck again. 2nd gear was working fine, 3rd gear didn’t like the positioning. So when I went to try, the engine got stuck at some point and didn’t want to move further, nor to get off. Finally by 11 PM everything was working fine and we’re ready for mountains mission.

Vietnamese puzzle, difficulty hard :)

Full of excitement of fixed Hwin Dee we started our ascent early in the morning and caught first direct sun rays just few kilometers above Chan Nua. It was last Sunday of the lunar year and New Year celebration preparations were in full swing. Families killing pig, buying food and drinks reserves for next few days. We’re on our way to Sin Ho, village situated on a plateau at altitude of 1500 m. Alternative to Sa Pa and Bac Ha, also famous for traditional Sunday market where women from local tribes come to buy food for following week.

Tribe costume still has high value in the mountains

Our aim was to get there before 10 AM to catch the best of it. We succeeded pretty well, but paid with frozen fingers and slight hypothermia. It was first sunny day after long period of cloudy wintery weather and above 1000 m high it was just few degrees above zero. Not really Asian tropical dream weather :)

Early morning ride to Sin Ho

We checked into hotel close to the main market and headed for Pho breakfast. Market was bustling with women mainly dressed up in blue clothes with pretty nice jewellery and interesting headwears. The market itself is not as big as one would expect, but definitely lively enough.

Variety is the key !

When we had enough of people watching we moved on and went to discover little bit of surrounding nature. Following the same road we came on, we got to small cemetery on left side and took dirt road which finished after 500m, just to find interesting walk above rice paddies through rocky slope covered with thick forest.

Xin Chao Vietnam !

Later on we’ve explored the road few kms direction to Lai Chau and as the sun has hid behind the clouds, hunger and cold sent us back to our hotel to seek refuge in our room and later restaurant and finally owners of the hotel prepared amazing snacks session downstairs in the main entrance hall. Here we met 3 English guys travelling on off road bikes from Hanoi. After few days out of social contact with western people it was pretty cool to have a chat and few beers and shots of rice wine.

Discovering nature around Sin Ho

Next morning was quite unique. Woke up around 8 AM to find whole town being completely dead quiet. No motorbikes on the road, no shops open, no people shouting as any other day would be normal at this time of the day. Welcome to Lunar New Year day, one of few if not only real day off for all Vietnamese people. Pretty surreal feeling, little bit like the town got struck by alien force which took everyone away.

Completely dead quiet...

Rare to see, empty socialist avenues in empty cities - Lunar new year day

We set off for our ride to Lai Chau around 9:30 and slowly took in warmth of the sun now being pretty high on the sky. The road drops down for maybe 20 km, followed by 20 km hike to another pass and final section is again 20 km drop to Lai Chau. Little villages are dotting first section of the road, becoming more sparse afterwards.

Bizzare hills around Sin Ho

Local girls VS falai

Just few kms above Lai Chau we’ve discovered impressive cave - Dong Pu Sam Cap, for 30 000 D each, we got in and local guy turn the lights inside just for us, followed our steps and then showed us second cave hidden in jungle some 15 minutes walk away. Little hidden gem not many people seem to know about.

Deep underground

Inside dragon mouth

We’ve passed through Lai Chau pretty quickly, just stopped to fill up a tank ( petrol station was closed, but there were some guys hanging around market and they drained 4 liters from their generator and shared with us ) and went further to Tam Duong, where we decided to stay for a night before the ride to Sapa which will require at least 2 hours more of riding.

Business as usual, regular rockfall

In the next morning with all clothes on, we started the beautiful steep hike to Sa Pa through Hoang Lien Son mountain range where majestic Fansipan, the highest peak in Indochina (3143 m high) touches the sky.

Fansipan - Highest mountain of Indochina

An amazing winding ride took us up to 2010 m high in the pass with amazing mountainous scenery and very very cold air. Views along the road are stunning. Definitely highlight on the list of Vietnam roads.

You definitely want to ride on this road on a day like this !

On the other side of the pass, first white faces on rented motorbikes greeted us every 500 m, and passing Thac Bac (pretty but unfortunately paid waterfall on the way) we arrived in Sa Pa.

The town of Sa Pa has got the charm of old french colony. It has been quite a while we have seen such a crowded place (and it is winter !) and mutually we agreed to explore the valley below Sa Pa, after a black H’mong lady told us about the possibility to overnight in a homestay.

Steep slopes of 20 km long valley are covered with endless terraced rice fields where scattered minority villages are located. The famous rice fields of Sa Pa are actually here !

Famous rice fields of Sa Pa - nothing is growing here in February though :) come back in August

In spite of being in winter and the rice fields not being in its most greenery splendour, the views were magnificent!

Endless rice fields

The road was bad but we had a lot of fun covering it together with locals on similar Xe Mays or by foot. After passing a couple of more popular villages we arrived in Ban Ho, with Tay people.

Entering the first narrow steep path on the top of the village we got to a friendly homestay where we stayed overnight, as only guests, with both dinner and breakfast included, for 300.000 VND :)

Hope I'm not gonna meet buffalo on this path ;)

The stilt house lodged on the top floor the guests room - an open room filled with mattresses, mosquito nets and curtains, creating more privacy, while the kitchen and family rooms where located on ground floor surrounded by open space as a terrace.
 

Beautifully simple

Homestays actually offer the best accommodation and food one can have in Vietnam for reasonable price !

A Dao woman came along to sell her crafts ... after some laughing and a lot of patience on our side and insistence on her side, we got rattling keychain for our Hwin Dee.

Dao tribe woman

Having still some light before sunset, we decided to walk around the village and try to find the way to the waterfall. The god Dionysus (or the beer Hanoi) did not show us the way !... we have got lost in the jungle with the sandals dirtied by buffalo shit and fell down on our arses few times :)

Back in the homestay, we had one of the most amazing dinners we have had so far in asia, endless amount of rice, eggs, vegetables (seasonal cabbage) and meat (pork and chicken), everything freshly cooked and produced around the house. Tet was just a couple of days ago and that’s why there was plenty of meat left and needed to be eaten !

Inside Ban Ho village

We fell asleep early with a symphony of frogs, cicadas and crickets and were woken up with the first light of the day by clucking of chickens and cocks!

After enjoying fresh pancakes with banana and honey for breakfast, we set on our previous day mission : Ban Ho waterfall.

This time the way led us to it. The water was inviting and Roman tried how cold it was :)

This was very short dip, bloody cold water ...

A long journey through valleys of Lao Cai province was waiting for us. Around midday we set off to Bac Ha.

We took a dirt road on the banks of Ngoi Bo from Ban Ho, which lead us close to Pho Lu and spared us a back journey to Sa Pa.

Easy roads are for lazy tourists, adventurers can take some dirt ! 

It was a long way on half dirt half tarmac road - we made 30 km in 2h ! but the beautiful scenery compensate the time !

Dam on Bo river

Path is a destination in the first place !

The bumpy road turned to be good after the dam anyways ...

Approaching Bac Ha

Bac Ha is, same as Sin Ho or Sa Pa, famous for its Sunday market.

Villagers of neighbouring minorities come to sell and buy their products. This time we did not match with the weekend but in every corner we could greet the colourful Flower Hmong women, dressed in their best costumes.

Flower Hmong tribe girls

Flower Hmong tribe women 

We stayed in Bac Ha 2 nights and decided to explore its surroundings.

Traditional house with little rice fields

From Bac Ha town we rode the loop through Ban Pho and stopped for a break close to a waterfall where we met randomly our British friends from Sin Ho.

Waterfall after Ban Pho 

Hwin Dee and bigger brothers

We left the waterfall to discover way back to Bac Ha together. The road turned to mud pools filled with huge rocks and for some 10 kms didn’t resemble road at all. Surprisingly our Hwin Dee loaded with 2 rastas behaved almost as good as their off-road bikes and we caught up with them in tiny village on the ridge.

Fun in the mud

That definitely was the roughest ride we’ve done so far !

This might be highway one day :) not yet though

Local mountains are covered with mixture of pine trees, jungle and rice paddies cascading into different valleys all around.

You don't need to go to Sa Pa to see great terraced rice fields

Coming back to Bac Ha town

Back in Bac Ha town we still had some time to explore first few kms of the road in direction to Coc Pai - the next day trip :) on the way we found decently steep hill where we figured out that our head gasket was blown and needed replacement.

Komatsu sound system :)

Pretty crucial part, hole in a gasket and your bike goes no where, doesn’t even start ... Oops :)

Next morning we started early, our ride towards extreme north is covered in next section.

Spot the bike ?