Vietnam 2015
The tricky thing about planning 3 weeks in Vietnam is trying to decide which bit of the country you want to see most! We decided to explore the northern part of the country as that's where the most mountainous areas are. Wherever we go, we're drawn to the highlands and Vietnam was no different. We only actually planned the first few days as we wanted some flexibility to head wherever we wanted later in the trip. We had a very nice couple of days seeing some sights and the old town of Hanoi. Early morning wanders round Hoan Kiem lake watching the locals go through their ritual T'ai Chi moves got the days started. Easing into holiday mood with a massage or two. Learning that coffee in Vietnam is served iced as standard (yuk). Taking the ubiquitous spin in a Cyclo (pedal powered rickshaw kind of affair) and generally taking in the craziness of the old town streets. Traffic seems to be largely uncontrolled with every driver, motorbike rider and cyclists jostling for their piece of road. Horns are seemingly used simply to let everyone else know you are in motion. Crossing the street was hair raising but you soon settle into the idea that walking out confidently in the knowledge that everyone has no problem driving around you is just the done thing here. It's amusing also to see the local competition as to who can carry the largest load on the back of a moped.
Next up after Hanoi was our motorbike (glorified moped?) trip in the mountainous north of the country. This was absolutely the highlight of the trip and an experience neither of us will forget any time soon.
After a bike riding lesson that involved a few laps of a field where the only traffic to worry about were a few buffalo, we were deemed skilled enough to head off on 400km road trip through the mountains! The first hurdle was being given the task of driving the bike from the field back into central Hanoi and making the transition from buffalo traffic to the myriad of 'show no mercy' road users. I decided to ride the roads like the pedestrians cross them. Head down and go for it using blind faith that everyone else out there will make sure there are no incidents.
We took an overnight bus to Ha Giang and fuelled by a breakfast of pho (soup that's served everywhere, with every meal) and fried rice, we headed off on the first 170km leg of our journey to Dong Van. This whole area was relatively popular with Vietnamese tourists but we saw very few westerners the next few days. It felt like we were going well off the beaten path (I guess we weren't really) and we were happy to have a guide showing us the way and translating signs, menus etc.
After an overnight in Dong Van, we had an amazing day riding through stunning scenery and visiting the most northerly point in Vietnam (where they fly an enormous flag just to let the Chinese know who's around) and stopping to make friends with locals (mainly kids who were most interested in the sweets Karolina had bought to hand out along the way (later in the trip, when her conscience got the better of her and she worried about the damage the sweets would do the the kids teeth, Karo started handing out toothbrushes instead). Then we rode the incredible 20km stretch of road from Dong Van to Meo Vac. The scenery was so amazing that I was stopping my bike every few minutes to take a photo after photo, none of which do any justice to the scenes in front of us. We were very lucky to have good weather. Any cloud that was hanging around just added drama to the vistas.
The next day we left Dong Van and headed for Yen Minh. The day was overshadowed by Karolina taking a nasty crash off the side of the road. She skidded going into a left hand corner as we descended from a pass, vaguely holding it together as she skirted, out of control, over gravel round the outside of the bend, narrowly avoiding riding straight off the cliff to the right. Just as I thought she was getting the bike under control, she accelerated across the road (hit the gas instead of the brake, maybe the scant training in the field wasn't quite enough?) and did some sort of front flip into a ditch on the other side of the road and landed in-between some rocks. Incredibly lucky to escape with a few big bruises. It could have been so much worse. The bike needed substantial repair but the local 'garage' managed to realign the forks and repair the body work while we headed for lunch in a nearby village.
As we returned to the relative low lands, the steep sided karst mountain were replaced by slightly more sedate scenery as we passed rice fields and verdant valleys. More farming land meant more locals (and more sweets) as well as once again having cattle and buffalo to contend with on the roads.
From Yen Minh, we rode back to Ha Giang and sent our trusty bikes back to Hanoi with our guide. We jumped on a bus to Sapa. This is another beautiful mountainous area but the touristy nature of the town didn't suit us as well as the less trodden roads of Dong Van. Sapa Is home to Fansipan, the highest point in the country so, naturally we had to go tag that. The numerous guided trips suggest 2 or 3 days to make the ascent but it didn't seem too far so we did a 10 hour round trip hike in a day. We took a local Hmong guide who was great and good fun so we asked him to take us around the valley for a couple more days. This including a homestay with a local family. A great experience to see how the Hmong people live (kind of).
From Sapa, we headed back to Hanoi and then spent a couple of nights on a boat in Ha Long Bay. Another amazing place to visit, the karst mountain sticking up out of the sea making views you never get tired of looking at. We had a 'day tour' off our 'hotel boat' on the delightfully named Phuc Long to visit a pearl farm and had a chance to kayak to a deserted beach.
From Cat Ba we went to the mainland and Tam Cok to check out some temples and get a boat ride through amazing the caves under the mountains. Then it was back to Hanoi to finish off the trip.
