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.

Most northern capital of Laos - Phongsali

Day 94 - 20/2/2016
Quan Lan - North East Vietnam - Bai Tu Long Bay

Laying down in the bed at remote Vietnamese island, covered with thick duvet and having first day of slower pace since we entered Vietnam. Weather has been grey and cold for past 4 days and only option to get some sun is to head few hundred kms south.

Before we can start sharing our Vietnamese story we have one major location left from Laos - Phongsali.

Laos socialist culture 

After two days in Muang Ngoy we jumped on empty boat heading to Muang Khua and for 4 hours we’re watching jungle passing by.

On the way between Muang Ngoy and Muang Khoa

Steep cliffs on the beginning replaced with lower hills covered with thick bamboo forests and occasionally villages dotted the shore.

Calm water acts as huge mirror

Warming up on sandy beach half way through

Official 6 hours journey went much faster than expected ( I guess because we we’re just 4 passengers instead of 10 ) even though some of the rapids on the way up were pretty strong :)

Quick stop to buy fresh fish 

 Going downstream on kayak or canoe could be a lot of fun !

Navigating small canoe upstream has to be really hard

With these bigger ones it looked much easier

After almost a week since we’ve seen civilisation on a scale of town we got little bit shocked by the bustling town. Well bustling, not really bustling but compared to the villages from last week, just different world :)

Last sun shines on the beginning of Muang Khoa

Unless you’re planning on trekking in the area, there is not much to do. Only few things worth mentioning are : market, temple with monastery and old pretty high bridge.

Old school is cool

Cross the old bridge, turn left and you’ll find decent and cheap guest house, those in the town are all bit more expensive.

Muang Khua is for most people crossroad town on the way from Vietnam to Laos or vice versa.

Alms giving ceremony in early morning

To get further on our journey we got on early morning bus heading to Oudomxay (8:30) and jumped out 30 kms and one hour later in a place called Sin Chai. Few houses, bridge, bus station and couple of road restaurants. That’s all you can find here, but for us it was base for following 4 hours.

Somewhere along the road to Phongsali

First bus heading to Phongsali arrived around 10:30 already pretty full, took another 8 locals on but refused to take any white people... So that left me, Tati and one german couple from Hamburg stranded.

Next bus was supposed to arrive around 1 pm. We waited patiently and occasionally we tried to hitch hike.. No luck and more and more locals were arriving for the promised 1 pm bus from Oudomxay.. Oops ...

After midday I’ve started scouting on the other side of the bridge trying to catch a ride from cars coming from direction of Vietnam. Around 1 pm we finally got some luck and minivan Toyota dropped most of its crew on this location and became almost empty. All four of us managed to get in and our journey further north finally started.

The road was not in the best condition at all, now and then half of the road was missing due to landslide or collapse to deep valley below. Deep potholes were present every 100 meters.

It took the whole afternoon and we arrived just when the night crawled in.

After quick try of one dodgy guest house we’ve found Sensali guest house, checked in and wandered out to the dark streets to find some food.

Phongsali from Phou Fa viewpoint

Phongsali is little bit off the beaten path to say at least :) Being most northern capital, it doesn’t feel like capital town at all. All together just few guest houses, lot of restaurant signs but not serving any food ...

For first evening and following morning we took refuge in “Coffee shop” and fried rice did the job.

It definitely wasn’t the greatest culinary experience, but we had to get used to the fact that we’re in mountains again and good food is scarce if available at all :)

Next morning we woke up to blue bird day and decided to do little bit of exploring without any vehicles. Walking with random hitch hiking if possible.

Few hundred meters above the town itself is a little peak called Phou Fa with pagoda standing on top and wide views to far distance over Laotian mountains.

Pagoda on top of Phou Fa

As we arrived few days after freezing rain storm swept through the area we witnessed cruel power of heavy frozen water. Almost all branches of higher trees including super thick bamboos were broken off or some trees completely broken in half.

We’ve seen same thing on the way as well, it seemed like the freezing line was around 1100 m and everything above that went through period of freezing hell !

Locals shown us pictures from that day and freezing rain created ice crust in tree branches up to 10 cm thick.

This will take some serious time until the forests recover.

Just 2 kms east of the town one can find small tea factory surrounded by tea plantations.
We scored quarter of kilo of nice green tea for half of shop price and walked back to the old town to wander through tiny streets between Chinese one floor houses. Chinese seem to be present in very strong community and in some areas you feel more like in China rather than in Laos. It reminded us little bit of Ban Yang and Doi Mae Salong in Thailand.

Old town centre

After strong chicken noodle soup on the market we headed north west out of the town direction to Ban Khounsoukluang which is famous for green rice whiskey ranked as the best in all Laos. It was already after 2pm and our destination was some 9 kms further on the ridge.

Lunch break on the market :)

Fresh sausage !

Dirt and rocky road copies the main mountain and just bellow it, vast tea plantations spread far into the valleys. Now and then one can spot rare veg. field and cow or goat enjoying overgrown grass.

We walked for first few kilometers when we  heard the sound of truck behind us. Someone working on Sunday ? Quite rare for Laos :) We stepped aside to let the truck pass around us and to avoid splash of mud into our faces.

I don’t remember whether i tried to hitch the truck for a reason or just from bare custom, but the guys stopped and offered us a ride on top of loaded rice bags. As the road was very jumpy we found ourselves flying through the air many times and had to hold bloody tight :)

Huge size sticky rice bamboo box  

Within 10 minutes we’ve reached first village. Using our best hand and feet communication skills we figured out that the guys will continue to the next village ( our aimed green Lao Laao destination) so we had a quick stroll between wooden stilt houses, helped to sell some rice, smoked a cigarette and jumped back on !

Traditional bamboo houses

Final destination Ban Khounsoukluang was another 15 minutes away. We let our rice friends to do their job for a while and wondered around little bit.

Upon our return to the rice truck we bought 2 kilos of rice and some green peppers and gave it to very old couple who seemed the poorest from the people we’ve seen there. The lady was looking at me not understanding why am I giving her plastic bag with rice for a while :)
Surprised and very grateful they were...

Mobile rice store

We met our rice crew sitting in front of local whiskey producer house ( no sign, but green bottles and lot of shot glasses on the table), so we joined them, ordered half litre of their number one and started downing shots of this green mountain fairy.

Tasting Lao Laao number one

They guys were very surprised that Tati can drink as much as man can and didn’t want to stop pouring down more and more. We’ve finished half of their bottle and three quarters of ours within less than 30 minutes. We started feeling very light headed :)

Old tea tree

On the way back we stopped by old mine ( probably black coal ) and went some 100 meters inside to find out that wooden pillars holding the ceiling have collapsed in the past and now they are rotting on the floor. I heard some voices coming from very deep, our boys were scared ! Time to head out ...

When we passed through the first village again we sold another almost 100 kg of rice to people who were busy with other work during our first passage.

Grandma with grandson

We also managed to finish the bottle of our green Lao Laao while watching sun sliding behind hills on the horizon.

Lao Laao is working :)

No one is in hurry in this country, sellers, buyers, bus drivers, motorbike riders... Quiet unique for south east Asia.

Back in Phongsali, we headed to a famous Yunnan restaurant , met the friendly German couple there and invested more kips in Beer Lao. After so much drinking we fell asleep like babies knowing that motorbike ride would be waiting for us next morning... =)

A strong Zongshen motorbike was available in the only tourist agency, 100.000 kips and we got it to explore further villages around.

Zongshen dragon

The morning was pretty cold and a thick cloud was still sitting in the valleys around.

Thick clouds rolling in the valley

We first headed to 400 years old tea plantation - Ban Kormaen. Through dirt road in the ridge, we followed in a curvy style the profile of the mountain range. Passed through endless tea plantations, bushes give space to adult tea trees !

On the way to Ban Kormaen

After getting 2 packages of 4 tea cigars each from lady on the road, we found locals busy with luxurious product to export to Korea - each cigar has a bamboo “box” and costs double price than our previous acquisition. They were a quite nice westernised gift though ....

Bamboo packages of tea cigars

The village had a small exhibition about tea which unfortunately was closed but had great views to the environs.

Fresh tea plantations after Ban Kormaen

We decided to go a bit further to the last village signalised on the map - Ban Phongsek.

Beautiful views to the valleys, this time under a bright sun and tea plantations accompanied our tour until our final destination. Surprisingly the road continued but we did not explored it and after a little and basic chat with the oldest people of the village - they were squatting in front of wet rice which was drying in the sun, and shouting to the chicken that tried to get their bit... - we set back.

Burn and slash to plant new tea

On the way back and close to Ban Kormaen again, a sign to a path through the tea plantation got our attention. We got of the bike and decided to explore it.

Walk through 400 years ancient tea plantation

In the afternoon we rode to Hat Sa ca. 20 km from Phongsali, the old port village of Nam Ou, impossible to get from Muang Khua because of the Chinese dams.

Submerged in Hat Sa - Nam Ou river again 

The road dropped 1000 m lower  and was totally destroyed because of the heavy traffic of trucks from the quarry nearby Ban Sailom and the new dam cca 8 km above Hat Sa.

Hat Sa

After a quick coffee in Hat Sa port we followed a truck loaded with a boat until the dam.

The boats have to go around the dam, everything is possible

The dam was almost finished and created an astonishing mirror lake with huge touristic potential ! Now only locals from the upper villages were enjoying it, partying close to the new port and using the sound system of their jeep.

Brand new chinese Hydropower dam - Made in Laos

Time to get back to Phongsali, catch the last sun rays of the day and say goodbye to slow Laos. We were heading to Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam next morning in the craziest fully loaded bus ride we have had in the last months, but that we did not know yet ...

Sok dee Laos  !