Ha Giang, Vietnam: Extreme North Motorbike Loop
Road Rules
Honk three times to warn oncoming traffic you’re rounding a corner. A few urgent, medium-length honks lets your travel partner know a big truck is blowing by. Laying on the horn to tells your companion to pull over because you need a break, want to take a picture, or are in peril.
Luckily, I only needed to lay on the horn once to indicate peril during Louise’s and my four-day motorbike road trip in Northern Vietnam.
Do the Thing
Do the thing you’re supposed to do in the place you’re supposed to do it. In Vietnam, this advice (articulated playfully in Kristen Newman’s What I was Doing While You Were Breeding), leads you to traverse mountains on motorbike. It’s THE way to travel in Vietnam, and the most picturesque road trip is along the Chinese border. The Extreme North Motorbike Loop is becoming more popular, but the route beginning in Ha Giang still cuts through Vietnam’s least-visited provinces.
I think it’s important to emphasize that before this trip to Asia, I had never driven a motorbike (which in Vietnam is basically a moped, but with power comparable to a motorcycle). In our trip planning stages, Louise and I talked about driving the entire length of Vietnam, north to south. But the country’s staggering motor-vehicle accident rate coupled with rational distrust of my driving skills scaled back our plan. I was prepared to be brazen, but not reckless. Why I thought a route described as “extreme” and “least traveled” was the former instead of the latter, I’m not sure.
My goal in the first six weeks of our travels was to practice driving enough to feel confident when it came time for the Extreme North Motorbike Loop. Through northern Thailand, Louise coached me as we rode the same bike. In Laos, I drove alone. When we got to Ha Giang, I felt ready to rock it.
Day 1: Ha Giang to Yen Minh, 100km
We left our big backpacks in our Ha Giang hostel, stuffing everything we’d need the next four days in our day packs and attaching them to our bikes with bungee cords. Sunscreen? Check. First aid kit? Check. We’d desperately need both.
As soon as we zipped out of town, the mountains surrounded us. Overcome with the beauty of it all, we didn’t realize we were going the wrong direction until about 30 minutes into the drive. I’d like to say we got better at navigating after this glitch; we did not.
Back on track, we drove through layers of mountains, with those in the distance looking almost Seussian in their curvature. We wound through pine tree forests and teetered around hairpin turns. We avoided endless potholes and gravel and mud. We inched around construction trucks crawling uphill and let locals pass us downhill. At one of the many viewpoints, we stopped to marvel at the sunset that at first illuminated every detail of the landscape, and then left us in the dark—with about 30km left to go until we reached our homestay.
We didn’t know it, but this final stretch was the windiest bit of road we would encounter. I hate driving at night in my trusty Honda CR-V back home, so being assaulted by oncoming headlights around blind corners as a lowly, exposed biker was a nightmare. Around one such turn, I could tell a wide truck was barreling towards me, but I didn’t want to veer too far off the road to make room because the ditch was gravelly and I would risk falling. In an instant, I didn’t have a choice. A motorbike lugging a massive, dead hog squeezed its way between me and the truck, forcing my bike off the road and me off the bike. I skidded and toppled.
I laid there for a few moments wondering what the hell I was doing in a dark mountain ditch in Vietnam with a heavy bike pinned on top of my leg. Did a fridge-sized pig really just run me off the road?
Another biker pulled over to pull the bike off me and ask if I was okay. Yes, I was physically fine. Tears stung my eyes anyway. I didn’t know where Louise was, how much farther our homestay was, why these roads were so narrow and dark, and what business I had being on an “extreme” loop in the first place.
I shakily got back on the bike. Slowly, I accelerated to find Louise parked a few kilometers ahead of me.
“Where were you? You didn’t honk! Are you okay?” Louise asked me, softening her tone when she realized my face was wet with tears.
“I fell. I can’t do this.”
“Yes you can. We’re almost there.” Louise said tenderly but firmly. We didn’t have a choice but to move forward.
That night at our homestay, we enjoyed a family-style meal on the floor with our comrades, fellow North Loop road trippers from Israel, Switzerland, and the U.S. We all swapped stories of the road. We discussed what side excursions were worth exploring, what stretch of road provided the best views, and where we should stop for lunch to refuel. The sheer joy they found in the journey imbued in me excitement that had drained from my system with the fall. I no longer felt confident, but the desire to explore eclipsed my hesitations.
My new mantra for the road was “constant vigilance.”
Day 2: Yen Minh to Dong Van, 61 km
Only 38 miles separated our Yen Minh homestay from our hotel in Dong Van. After going the wrong way at the start of the day, yet again, we lengthened the journey by about 20 miles. Louise also fell for the first time in ankle deep mud.
Going the correct direction, we would quickly pass through the picturesque Dong Van Karst National Geopark. With extra time, we decided to explore one of the supposed flower fields in the area. The idea of lazing about in pink, white, and yellow flowers as a I gazed at mountain vistas sounded perfectly relaxing after a stressful evening and morning.
Unfortunately, we didn’t find any flower fields. Either it wasn’t the season, or we can’t follow a map. The detour we thought would take us to the flowers turned into a road to nowhere. Unpaved, and seriously rocky, the road ascended and descended for hours. Around each corner, we kept hoping we’d see the flowers. Instead, we only encountered more bouldery gravel.
At one point, I thought I spotted a field that looked promising. I held my honk for Louise to pull over. In my excitement, I flipped my kickstand on uneven ground and my bike tipped over. I turned around to find my sideview mirror shattered. Whoops. That was going to be an issue with the barreling trucks if we ever found our way back to the highway.
“Are we being stupid? Should we turn around?” Louise asked me.
“I truly don’t know.” I replied. We were following the map, signs, and our host’s directions. Hadn’t our comrades at the homestay told us they’d seen these flowers?
But I’ve learned that if you need to ask whether you’re being stupid, you are being stupid.
“Let’s turn around,” I decided after we rounded another flowerless corner.
After four hours on the bumpy, strenuous road, I grew tired of my constant vigilance. With only a mile left until we reached the highway, I fell again. I anticipated the danger during this particularly rocky region, so I was going slow. But this time, I was actually stuck between a rock and a hard place. The bike sat heavily on my ankle, and my upper body twisted in an awkward drape over the handlebars.
I didn’t remember to lay on the horn; I simply couldn’t move my body off the horn. The predicament indicated my peril.
Louise returned to find me sitting on a rock, massaging my ankle. Another Vietnamese angel had appeared out of nowhere to lift my broken bike off me. This time there was blood and more than a few tears.
I felt like The Little Prince. All of this for an illusive flower.
Once we finally arrived in Dong Van, I limped toward the nearest cocktail.
Day 3: Dong Van to Meo Vac, 22km
Our third day started off much better than the previous days. I found a repair shop that fixed my mirror for less than $1.00, and we were headed for the most scenic part of the road trip, the Ma Pi Leng Pass. Louise and I dedicated ourselves to staying on this short section of highway, also called the “Happiness Highway.” Indeed, it was hard not to smile in wonder at the natural aesthetics of the area.
The Ma Pi Leng Pass looks like a belt cinching the mountain range’s waist. Driving along this ribbon of a road provided stunning views of the river valley below and hidden villages in mountain inlets. Because it’s the most popular section of the Extreme North Motorbike Loop, the Ma Pi Leng Pass is also well-paved. What a treat!
Neither Louise nor I suffered a mishap on day three, and it was easy to forget about the trials of the trail. When we arrived early to Meo Vac, we relaxed at our homestay to play pool, drink smoothies, and watch the sunset.
Day 4: Meo Vac to Ha Giang, 140km
The long route back to Ha Giang played like a highlight reel of the previous days’ journeys. We retraced some of our steps to see our favorite views, but we couldn’t take too many breaks. It would take 10 hours of hard driving to return to our hostel in Ha Giang and catch our night bus to Hanoi.
Something felt right about conquering these roads and mountain passes again, without faltering. We didn’t get lost. We didn’t fall. We just enjoyed the ride.
By Mel Grau
