We took the early bus at 6am from Lao Cai for 120,000 Dong and we were off and running to Ha Giang. We knew nothing of the area. LP just said it had some of the most stunning scenery in South East Asia. We figured we would pass through in a couple of nights and see what we thought. We had been chatting with a Dutch girl who was also traveling up in that area around the same time as us. She was a day or so ahead of us and she gave us an idea of things to see on our first couple of days up there. As information is pretty crap about this area I will add on some details as and when its necessary. The bus ride from Lao Cai to Ha Giang passed through some really beautiful scenery and finally arrived just after midday. Hmm Ha Giang didn't seem that stunning and the limestone mountains around the town were very pretty, but nothing we hadn't seen in Laos. Maybe it was not going to be that great. We would see. We found a cheap hotel for around 120,000 Dong for the night and set off to get the permit. We were considering taking the tour with Mr Anh's travel company and using his minivan to make it through as we had heard that you needed a guide. We went to the permit agency and paid $10 each to get a permit to visit Ha Giang. They asked us how much time we wanted and I said 3 days, but Cannelle went for 6 just in case. Thank God she did. You can seemingly ask for whatever amount you want. They wanted to know who our guide was and we said we were going to book with Mr Anh, but that we hadn't organised it yet. It was good enough for them. We met some people who didn't take a guide at all, but if you use the same tactic as us it is a very smooth process. Then we went to Mr Anh's tourism office. Or his house. I am not sure if it is still operable. After scaring the kids inside by surrounding his house, we eventually realised that he wasn't in. Shit. Now we had a problem. We considered hiring motorbikes and going ourselves and that would still be my ultimate recommendation if you have the time and comfort in riding. We rang Mr Anh from our hotel and he informed us that his tour was no longer running due to lack of demand, but he was considering reintroducing it in March 2013. It seems LP's recommendation came just too late for him. So it seemed that the bus was our only option. We then saw three tourists in town and ambushed an Israeli girl to get some information. They had gone to Dong Van and back by bus and said the road was the most stunning place they had seen. We asked them where we should get off the bus and what parts were especially stunning. They said everywhere. That made no sense. How can an entire road be stunning? We would see. After getting a bit of info and finding out that the police don't check anything in the area, we felt comfortable and went for dinner. We went to a local place near the hotel and got a local porridge dish with pork. Really nice. What was even nicer were the local people. They came and joined us to have a chat even though they don't speak any English. They even gave Cannelle and Jessica loads of free shots of local rice wine. Such nice people. We were struck by how amazingly nice the local people were. Anyway, we would grab an early bus the next morning to get off at Quan Ba for Tam Son mountain and maybe get off at the Quan Ba Pass.
We got up around 6am for the first bus, but because we weren't heading to Dong Van and it was the Saturday before the famous Sunday market, they decided to stick us on a local bus to Quan Ba. Some information you may need is related to public buses to Meo Vac and Dong Van. You can go to both of them from Ha Giang and we had believed that it passed through one and onto the other, but that's not quite right. There is no bus over Meo Vac Pass and you have to use private transport. The road splits at Yen Minh so you should head for Dong Van initially. There was a lot of chopping and changing. Organisation is not their strong point here, but hospitality certainly is. Two hours later and we were under way. The road was really beautiful. Impressively beautiful. We were really happy and you could stop for photos everywhere. Take a motorbike if you can. After about 35km it hits a valley and winds up into Quan Ba Pass. We were really unlucky. We crossed it twice and both times it was smothered in fog. Yet still it was stunning. Our truck was very overloaded and struggled up the hill. It even got a rock stuck in the wheel axle that they had to remove. On the whole the driving is really safe up there though. It cost us 50,000 to Quan Ba. We skipped the Pass as the rain was heavy and the fog was low and got down at Quan Ba town. The place is really, really pretty. Much more impressive than anywhere we saw in Sapa. I walked back up the hill and the sky opened up to spill sunlight over a wonderful vista. Sublime. You won't be disappointed. Its a biggish town and you may be able to stay there. We got yet more great service as we had lunch and eventually jumped on the last bus to Dong Van around 1.30pm. That cost us another 80,000. I think you can get a direct bus from Ha Giang to Dong Van for 120,000 but you should definitely break at Quan Ba. Its not a long walk back up the hill to the observation platform if the weather is good (15 minutes) or even better get off at the observation area and walk down the hill to Quan Ba savouring all the views. Then the scenery just continued to get more and more beautiful. I could understand why the others had said there is no highlight. This road can stand up there with the best I have ever been through. Every valley brings a different scene as there must be between 5 and 10 different types of rock there and they carve up the landscape into a myriad of different forms. Truly breathtaking. After Quan Ba you head down into another stunning valley before following along a beautiful river, surrounded by a mix of limestone and black/orange rock. Then you ascend into the clouds to ride through a high pass surrounded by rice fields. Following that you descend through pine forests into Yen Minh, which is also a stunningly located town. You could probably stay there as well, but again we did not test it. By now the sun was fading, but ascending from Yen Minh the landscape took on something that looked like it belonged on the moon. Huge black rocks sharply carving out the landscape of limestone. You can't really describe it. Just go. I have never seen anything like it. We had seen another truck that had gone over the edge on the road, but luckily for them it was on a corner where the drop was not too far. It was also the first time that we saw lots of pigs strapped to the back of motorbikes, squealing as they were driven round the mountains. We arrived in Dong Van and it was already long dark. We found a cheap hotel for around 120,000 and went looking for food. There is one tourist orientated restaurant in town. Do not under any circumstances eat there. The food is super shit and astronomically overpriced. It is populated by tour groups (mostly old French people) with more money than sense and the staff have no time for you if you are not big spenders. They don't deserve your custom. We were really happy to have a permit for multiple days now. Cannelle even suggested that we should walk the 196km road in the future. It is that stunning.
We woke up in the morning to see that the town was surrounded by beautiful limestone mountains. What a superb location. Everything about this place was great. We headed over to the famed market to have a look around. We are not really too interested in hill tribes, but if you are then this is the place to come. Forget the North West. Here everyone was in their multicoloured traditional dress, but they were only selling stuff to each other. Only a few old French tourists as almost noone comes here by public transport. Nothing aimed at tourists. Noone tries to sell you anything. In five days up in Ha Giang not one person ever tried to sell us anything. Someone else said they 'ignore you but in a good way'. That's very true. Wonderful people. The market was cool and we decided to rent motorbikes to go to Lung Cu, the Hmong palace and the Chinese town of Pho Bang. Motorbikes are expensive up there. Its another reason why you should bring your own. It was my first time on a motorbike since I had crashed and I was a little nervous. We figured we would do Lung Cu first as it was off the main road and less intimidating for my first experience of riding in the mountains. The hotel opposite the shitty tourist restaurant has motorbikes for rent and also some good maps for trekking and riding. We didn't do the trekking ones, but they looked good. There is a lot to keep you busy with in Lung Cu. It cost us 400,000 for an automatic and 300,000 for a manual. They only had one automatic, so get some experience of riding manuals before you come here. It will be worth it. You don't want to learn on these roads, though Jessica had no problem. We took the 'safer' road. Big mistake. There is no traffic, but this is a seriously psychologically tough road for a vertigo sufferer to ride. Lots of steep drops and climbs towards edges and we stayed at around 25km/h. The road is gorgeous though. Wow. Almost even better than the main road. Its hard to ride and concentrate on the road when you are surrounded by such breathtaking scenery. Some kids tried to sell us lavender but everyone else just smiled and waved. We finally arrived at Lung Cu (27km away) after 1.5 hours of riding with stops. It gets super cold at the top of the pass in the winter and my hands were quite frozen. We parked up the bikes and walked into the very picturesque village. We stopped to grab some tea and use the toilets in a little cafe, while playing with their puppies. Nice people, who insisted that we didn't need to pay for anything at all. We tried to insist, but they wouldn't accept anything. Such nice people. We then paid the guard and climbed up the flag tower. From the top you can see into China and luckily a Hanoi family was there and their guide had opened up the tower. It is apparently very rare to get to climb to the top, but we managed it. If you don't make it, don't worry as the view is not noticeably different from the top level of the tower platform. Again we were met by 360 degrees of beautiful scenery. Completely untouched. The Hanoi family chatted with us and posed for photos. Really nice people. We came back down to get the bikes and ours would not start. Dead. Shit. It can't be possible. Dead. Definitely dead. Bugger. We were 27km from Dong Van and our bike was dead. We took it to the local mechanics, but there was nothing they could do. They just kind of laughed and tried to fiddle with it. Shit. Jessica would have to ride back and tell the hotel that it was dead. Now we weren't sure what they would do or how they would react. We had heard such bad stories about Vietnam that we figured our only real option was to walk back to Dong Van in case noone came to get us. We set off on the long walk. Lots of locals chatted with us (though we could not understand a word) and some were laughing at the weird, walking white people. It gave us time to get some nicer photos and prompted our idea to walk the next day. After around 15km of walking a car showed up and they asked us to get in. Cannelle didn't want to go all the way back to the bike and then back to town so we said we would carry on walking and they could pick us up when they came back past. We carried on. Ten minutes later the car was beside us again. They told us to get in. They couldn't possibly have got to the bike yet. Then they handed me the phone. It was the guy from the hotel. He said his friend did not speak English and so naturally he hadn't understood what I had told him and wanted to know where his bike was. I told him we had left it in a mechanics in Lung Cu. Shit. I wondered what was going to happen. I started to stress that they were going to ask for a lot of money from us. We got back and braced ourselves. The guy apologised for the bike breaking down and said we only had to pay for a half day. Cool. It was ok with us as we had gone halfway to what we wanted to see and had seen the only place inaccessible by public transport. We decided to stay for two more nights and went for a little walk to overlook the town. Very nice. We decided to go for a walk to the old town of Dong Van. Here we discovered an internet cafe. All the way here. Every hotel said there was no internet in town, but its not true. Its 4,000 an hour and very quick. Spurs won 3-0 against Fulham and both Chelsea and Arsenal had lost.
In the morning we were up early again to get the bus towards Yen Minh, though we jumped off at the turning to Pho Bang. This is a little old village with lots of old Chinese houses. We had decided to walk all of the sections we had not seen on the original bus ride. We paid 30,000 to get to the turnoff and the local laughed when we said we were going to walk. There were no more automatic scooters and we didn't want to pay so much. We walked the very scenic and very cold 5km hike to Pho Bang. We grabbed some noodle soup there and walked around town. It is really very pretty and the locals were super smiley. Everyone was unbelievably friendly to us up there and I really don't think they had quite worked out what tourism is and its much the better for it. Jessica was feeling quite ill, but she persevered for the day and we would walk 36km back to Dong Van including the 10km round trip to Pho Bang. Jessica managed to grab a ride from some local guys with 10km to go for free. They really are very nice here. Every valley is different and you slowly move from one stunning valley to another. When you walk you have the time to take in every little detail along the way as well. One old man seemed to have a go at us. I am not sure what for and he was the only negative experience we had up there. It was a minor one. We hiked back and I took the small detour of 800m or so to see the Hmong Palace. Yes it is that little white building you can see in amongst the trees in one of the valleys. Its not amazing, but if you are passing by then it is a nice place for a visit. The surrounding valley is stunning as always. A local chef from Hanoi stopped twice on his motorbike to have a chat with us as we were walking. A local truck even stopped to offer us a ride for free into Dong Van, but we declined as we wanted to savour the road. The last 6km or so winds through some beautiful pine forests and you have some great views over the rice terraces. Really beautiful. Worth the trip. We got back into town and went to the little local restaurant in town. If you stand outside the touristy restaurant and face the hotel opposite, then the go right and walk along the road, the restaurant is about 50m up the road and is the first on the left. The woman there makes really, really good fried rice with egg and meat. Ask her for two eggs and it is even better. We wrote down 'two eggs please' in Vietnamese and this amused her loads so I assume we wrote it wrong, but she understood what we wanted. Jessica decided she would go back to Hanoi the following day as she wanted to see a doctor. It was now that we discovered there was no public transport over Meo Vac pass. Shit. That the last bus from Dong Van to Ha Giang was 12.30pm. Shit again. And that there were no automatic bikes. Shit. Finally we found out that there was a bus from Meo Vac at 12pm, so we could take a taxi over the pass. That would cost us 500,000. Expensive, but this was supposed to be the highlight of a breathtaking area. We went for that option to connect with the Meo Vac bus.
We got up and watched a program about English pronunciation. Funny as it was so shit, but at least they are really trying to learn and the level of English in Vietnam aside from Ha Giang is truly impressive. We took a taxi through Ma Pi Leng Pass at 10am. It was totally foggy. Shit. We could see nothing. The taxi driver gave us some free local sweets and stopped halfway at the viewpoint with no prompting. He futilely pointed out where the view of the river would be. It was just grey mist, but it was nice of him to try. This region is so nice that even the taxi drivers are nice and the moto taxi drivers don't hassle you. We arrived in Meo Vac disappointed, but managed to get a bus around 1pm (though aim for 12pm just in case). They have internet there as well and a ridiculously nice cafe next to the main hotel. The internet is super fast, but sometimes you can't access some sites and I guess that may be because the server is from China. We had our first lying in Vietnam when they told us there were no buses in the afternoon until we insisted and they told us there was one at 1pm. Shame. They told us there was no bus to Lao Lac like LP says there is. I can't say for certain that this is true, but I would work on the assumption that this bus does not exist to avoid disappointment. We were quoted 2,000,000 to take a taxi from Dong Van to Bao Lac where these is definitely onward transport and accommodation. If time is more of a hindrance than money then that's a good time saver and you may be able to haggle on the price. They told us the bus was 120,000, but the bus driver only asked us for 110,000 so I guess that's the price. So we were off back to Ha Giang and would have to find a different route to Cao Bang. One local guy fell in the mud running for the bus which amused everyone as he got covered in mud and didn't have time to change. A local girl offered us oranges and even peeled mine for me. Such nice people. We got to Ha Giang and Jessica got a night bus to Hanoi at around 8pm for around 170,000. We found out that there was a bus for Bao Lam at 6am and it was 80,000 or 120,000. I can't remember. The total to get to Cao Bang was definitely 200,000 and I think the Bao Lam part was shorter and must have been 80,000. They had wanted us to go via Hanoi, but its not worth it as this route is also really pretty and well worth the trip. It also saves you a night bus. Ha Giang is a beautiful province and one of the best places I have ever been. Certainly its the highlight of South East Asia so far and we didn't even see the two passes due to the weather. Jaw dropping scenery and wonderful people. Get there and visit it before it changes. You won't regret it.
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