Get ready… this is going to be a long one! We had said when we started planning this trip that we wouldn’t do an overnight bus or a homestay… so 3 days ago we got an overnight bus to a homestay 🤣
We knew we wanted to visit somewhere in the North of Vietnam and for weeks we couldn’t decide between Sapa or Ha Giang Loop. After reading many reviews, we decided we would give the loop a try with an easy rider, as neither of us can ride a motorbike. There are so many options, but because we’re far too old for the hostel gap yahh experience 🤣 we decided to book a small group tour and have our own room.We were picked up from our hotel and taken to a drop off point, and after much confusion we found out we had been booked onto the luxury bus transfer! This meant your own compartment within the bus, with a pillow, blanket and curtain. Mark being the BFG was far too long for his, but it was still a lot better than we had expected. About an hour after we had set off, a Vietnamese couple decided to sit underneath our cabin, and play TikTok videos.. constantly.. for about 2hrs 🙄
About 5hrs in I was absolutely desperate for a wee, but being an NHS worker I’ve usually got my bladder well trained. Cue Norway wee gate part 2 (for those of you who know that story!) I asked the driver if we could pull over and he told me 20 minutes. After about 30 and still not stopping I was about to burst! Mark then went and asked the driver when we were stopping and he was very rudely waved away. I was now at the point where I was deciding whether to wee on my spare jumper, or the blanket they had provided, as the shoe bag we had been given had a massive hole in. Luckily before that decision, we pulled up outside a dodgy looking restaurant, where I made a run for it, and was obviously met by a queue. Nobody was using the end toilet and at this point, I didn’t care why.. so I ended up trying to hold the door closed and hold my clothes out the way as a squatted and wee’d over the tiniest drain hole ever. Obviously as I was so desperate I completely missed the hole, and ended up weeing over my shoes and laces instead 👍🏻I also had no toilet roll. A low moment in life…
At 4am, and smelling of wee, we pulled up to our homestay and were taken up to our bed – an incredibly hard mattress on the floor, behind a curtain, in a room with at least 10 other people. Due to lack of sleep we really didn’t care. We got ourselves settled for a few hours kip, and that’s when the snoring, phones, bugs, buses and cockerels all started making noise 🙄
A few hours later we met our easy riders for the trip – Tu and Nguyen. These guys were the ones responsible for keeping us alive over the next 3 days! We started the morning with a big bowl of Phở. I tried so hard to use my chop sticks, but I just kept dropping everything back in the bowl and my jumper very quickly was splattered with Phở juice. We knew it would be colder up in the North.. but not as cold as it was. The weather app that said 20 degrees was a total lie as we sat shivering in the 14 degrees. But the adventure was finally happening!
Obviously as well as it being cold, it was thick fog, and this was the story for the next 3 days. We stopped at viewpoint after viewpoint, but sadly at the majority of them, we just couldn’t see anything at all. All we could do was Google ‘this is what we could have seen’. We did manage to get some breaks in the fog and thick clouds and this gave us some amazingly dramatic scenery.
We stopped for coffee and oh my days.. Vietnamese coffee is absolutely foul!! No amount of sugar or milk could make it taste nice 🤢 it also smells weird… Tu then began telling us about Weasel coffee that rich people drink in Vietnam – it is produced using the partially digested coffee cherries that are eaten by Asian palm civets and harvested from their poo 💩 One of the things that makes the Loop so interesting is the ethnic minority groups that live there. Tu was telling us that it’s not uncommon for them to have 3 children by the time they’re 20. I think he thought we would be really shocked by this statistic..
I was really looking forward to getting to the next accommodation as I was getting super tired and desperate for a nap, to the point where I accidently nodded off and headbutted my driver! He was clearly very keen to get back too; I felt like Valentino Rossi as he took some of the corners! We were taken to a restaurant with other riders and given bowls of meat, veg and rice for us to help ourselves. When we asked what one of the suspicious looking bowls was, turns out it was goats organs 👍🏻I did try the pigs ear… but I drew the line at that. The next challenge after food was working the shower, and after multiple tries to get hot water, we gave up.
After another night on a solid mattress, we were given an egg, tomato and cucumber Bánh mì, which turns out is actually a nice combo. As we were leaving to get on the bikes we could hear a weird squeeling sound – I said it sounded like pigs getting slaughtered – Tu confirmed I was correct…. we started off the day with relatively decent visibility, however that soon changed into thick fog, which made riding on the pot holed road (one to rival Worcester) an absolute nightmare. We stopped at a cafe and watched the local children go about their day, and enjoyed a fresh squeezed OJ. Nature called again and I was faced with yet another glorious toilet that I had to blast other people’s piddle off the seat with the hose provided. Around the sink was animal skulls, toothbrushes and a razor 🤷🏼♀️
We arrived at our next homestay and managed to have a hot shower! We sat down with other groups and tucked into another meaty feast of pork, beef and of course.. chicken feet. The family who were hosting us all were insistent on us all joining them for shots of ‘happy water’, which was gross, and karaoke. We got chatting to some lads lads lads from Sweden (who were very into singing Elvis karaoke) and it was great getting restaurant recommendations and hearing all about their travels so far.
For our last morning, we were yet again woken by more cockerels and enjoyed pancakes with a condensed milk dipping sauce! We went to the local waterfall and we finally got some blue sky and sun, so we sat for a while, taking in the beauty of our surroundings. The sun obviously didn’t last long, and it was fog as usual for the final ride back into Ha Giang town to get the bus back to Hanoi. The last leg of this ride was a long one, so our legs, back, and bum were absolutely killing by the time we got back!
You’re probably reading this thinking why on earth did they do this trip 🤣 even with the rubbish weather, the views we did manage to get were amazing, and if you do this on a clear day, I bet they’re out of this world. From staggering rice fields, luscious forests, imposing rocky cliff faces, rolling green hills, and beautiful mountain valleys. You get to see the ‘real Vietnam’ and learn about life and culture in the small agricultural villages scattered throughout the region. Watch the children playing and having the best time. Getting an easy rider allows you to see things you might not do on your own, such as The Death Cliff (don’t worry.. the rain very much put us off climbing onto it!) and other little hidden gems along the way. Even if you can ride, people have said they would have preferred an easy rider so they could enjoy their surroundings more. So if you ever come to Vietnam.. you must book this trip! Enjoy some the most unique roads, the homestaysand the happy water – “Một hai ba dzô!”
The Travelling Ginger 