The Ha Giang Loop, one of our two bucket list items for this whole trip. Albiet the whole trip itself, and waking up everyday in a new place is obviously a bucket list already.
In recent years the Ha Giang Loop has gained its fame for one of the best things to do in Vietnam, and was something I was desperate to do on my trip back in 2020 but had to leave before even making it to Vietnam. Chris is a bit motorbike guy, his most prized procession is his Harley Davidson at home, and although we've driven scooters plenty on this trip, naturally a little zip around a town doesn't quite scratch the motorbiking itch like a 3 day drive through northern vietnam. So understandly, Chris was also indescribably excited for this trip.
Theres a number of hostels and tour companies that organise these trips, and a few different ways to partake. We went for the second biggest company, Mamas. They have smaller groups and are significantly less party than the biggest group, Jasmine Tours. Despite being a smaller tour, we still had about 100 people in total! Which sounds crazy big, but they break you into small groups of 10 who take slightly different routes with different orders of stop of points, so at no point while driving were there 100+ of us! You can also choose to; drive yourself on their motorbikes, drive yourself but also with a friend/second person on the bike with you, or have tour guide from Mamas drive you and you sit on the bike with them (called EasyRider options).
Naturally, Chris jumped at the chance to drive himself, and didnt have any reservations about that decision. The whole reason Chris wanted to do this was to drive himself. He has a full bike license, our travel insurance covers him fully, and he has the legallt required international drivers license to drive in Vietnam. A naive and care-free 22 year old Morrighan drove herself on scooters a number of times during my short pre-pandemic trip (yes, uninsured, and without the correct licence. Which i don't advocate for, but I was caught up in the moment with a big group of friends all doing the same thing)... however I've learnt I've become much more risk adverse over the last 5 years, and value having valid travel insurance incase anything happens! I havent driven a bike once this trip, also because Chris wouldn't ever agree to being passanger princess. So I opt for the EasyRider option! And boy am I glad I did!
First we spent one night in Ha Giang town before heading to our hostel for the loop. The town itself actually really surprised us. We'd never heard people talk Ha Giang itself, just the loop. But it had some real charm to it. It was a small, non-touristy, worker down. But really lovely to wander around. We've found with a lot of these traditional, smaller Vietnamese towns, they're just lovely to wander around and explore.
We arrived at our hostel the night before the trip, as we were set to leave at around 8am the next morning. We relaxed in the social area of this massive hostel, as more and more people checked in ready to start the loop in the morning. We ended up chatting with 5 people on our table and shared a pizza dinner together, before getting an early night.
Day one of the loop
In the morning we were called for a briefing, where the route was explained, we were all placed into our group's for the loop and for those with an Easy Driver like me were paired up with their driver for the next 3. Two of the people we'd spent the evening before ended up in our group which was lovely! They were a couple the same age as us, doing a similar trip having taken breaks from work and we instantly got on which was fab!
Heading out to our bikes, we strapped my day bag to the bike and I (literally) climbed into my driver, Dao's, VERY tall bike😅 It was certainly not built for short folk like me. And off we went, me on the back of Daos bike, and Chris on his own bike!
I am SO glad Chris and I had been on lots of scooters together prior to this. Dao was an incredibly fast driver. Morrighan 4 months ago would have hated every second of this, as I used to be terrified sat on the back of scooters. But I've really eased into it recently and actually enjoyed the adrenalin rush of zipping through the most incredible countryside roads. But oh my was it beautiful! Every hour or so we'd make a stop at various view points, often meeting up with atleast one other group at each point. The generally theme of the whole three days was just how good the vibes were, everyone was having a great time, people brought speakers to play from their bikes or at view points etc. It was just perfect.
One of the biggest drivers (no pun intended) to people doing the loop is to see and experience tribal village cultures in Vietnam. Back in my post about Hoi An I talked about the photo exhibition of tribes across Vietnam, and the photographer who travel between them documenting their lives and culture. A large percentage of those tribes are based in the very North of Vietnam, around the Ha Giang area. So along the way we stopped off at one of those villages, and watched this super talented lady do some traditional calligraphy painting. You could tell she had been doing it for years, the way it all came naturally too her, drawing the boarder without a seconds thought.
After covering around 90km on day one, we checked in our homestay for the first night. On night one the groups stayed in separate homestays as, I'm sure you can imagine, finding a homestay big enough for 100 tourists plus about 60 drivers isnt easy! We ended up in a lovely homestay with a nice garden out the back. Throughout the day, we'd also made friends with another group of friends in our group. Again, the nicest part was they were a similar age, doing similar things - two of them were a couple who had been traveling for about 4 months together, and the other 4 were their friends who has come to visit them in Vietnam to do the loop! It was so nice to have formed a fab group of friends to quickly on day one so this group, and the couple we met at the hostel before we left basically spent the whole 3 days together!
Each night of the trip we had a big group dinner, drinks and some free "happy water" AKA awful homemade rice wine. Which is a speciality in North Vietnam and plays a pretty significant part in any Ha Giang Loop. Its tradition to drink a shot of the happy water as one big group, to set of the nights celebration and start of dinner. Together you all chant......
má»™t, hai, ba, zo!
hai, ba, zo, zo, zo
hai, ba, mama ma
hai, ba, uống
This translates to;
1,2,3, cheers
2, 3, cheers, cheers, cheers
2, 3, mama ma (the name of our hostel, ish)
2, 3, drink
Fair to say we all had one to many happy waters and beers that night😅 and ended up doing karaoke for hours, another vietnamese specialty and exchanging British and vietnamese dance moves..
(Yup, that's my driver handing out the shots of happy water😅)
Day two of the loop
Feeling slightly fragile, but excited for day two, at 8am we hit the road again. On todays activities we were off to see China and see one of the most famous roads on the loop. It was a longer day of driving this day, and my bum definitely felt it sat on the back of the bike all day!
Generally, we'd only occasionally see other big groups of drivers, either going the other way down the road, or up ahead of us. All the tours do a really good job at organising their routes so places arent always packed, so its easy to forget JUST how many other people are doing the same loop. Our Mamas tour has about 100 people plus driver's, Jasmine Tours typically have about 250 people at a time plus drivers, and there are lots of other small tour groups too. When we pulled up to this view point of the famous road though, it felt like everyone was there all at the same time. The road up was packed and lined with parked up bikes for what seemed like miles, and the view point itself was packed.
After that viewpoint we head to China! The Ha Giang Loop goes so North in Vietnam that it reaches the Vietnam/China boarder. To get to the viewpoint you have to drive a pretty narrow, and sketchy at points, road along the cliff edges of Vietnam. This was probably the first time I got a bit nervous on the trip. The road at times was very gravely and full of potholes, to avoid the potholes you had to drive right next to the cliff edge! It was absolutely stunning though. Between Vietnam and China is a big valley miles deep, before the Chinese mountains start. It was a stunning drive, just filled me with fear, also fear for Chris who was driving himself!
After the sketchy drive, we walked up to the tower viewpoint giving panoramic views across the boarder of both China and Vietnam. Does this mean I can tick China off my bucket list?🤔 maybe not yet haah.
A reminder of how dangerous this can be..
There was just one road down to this view point, so we had to return via the sketchy road we arrived on. Unfortunately it was worse the other way, towards the end of the road the incline of the hill got incredibly high. Those driving themselves only had a small bike, at 110cc and found there wasn't enough power to get them up the hill. Despite being an experienced driver, Chris even struggled and while trying to move into first gear, managed to flip the bike onto its back wheel as the engine over reved, kicking Chris off the back of bike. Thankfully he was uninjured, just shaken and frustrated.
Literally at the same time though, the couple we'd made friends with, who were on the same bike together having chosen that option of riding, has a more serious issue getting up the hill. The bike wasn't moving at all, and started to roll backwards, on that tiny little road I showed before. While Maggie managed to jump off the back, Louis who was driving tried his best to stop the bike rolling backwards and ended up sliding off the side of the road and onto the cliff edge verge!! The only thing that stopped him continuing to roll backwards was the safety concrete pole on the edge of the cliff. It was terrifying! Me and Dao were right next to both Chris, and Maggie and Louis when it happened and were able to quickly jump off and help them. But my god it was sketchy! Again, thankfully Maggie and Louis were okay, and much like Chris were just shaken and frustrated!
The easy drivers hopped on both their bikes and drove them to a more flat, safer part of the road, for the three of them to walk up the hill and start from safer ground.
After that, we took a slow and steady drive to our spot for lunch and sat with a couple we met on our night at the hostel before we left. He had a bandaged on his hand, where he'd had a fall off his bike at a different point, and told us about a lad who on day one, yesterday, has had such a bad crash he had to get taken back to Ha Giang so he could go to hospital and get his cuts properly looked at. Both these people were also driving themselves. This was a very healthy reminder of how dangerous this loop can be , especially if you're not experienced driving bikes and handling difficult terrain, and why it's got a name for itself as "Vietnams most dangerous road!"
After those stressful moments, and a nice lunch, we continued the drive towards our homestay for the night. What was lovely though, was the support and care for each other in the group. We constantly stopped and checked in on each other, particularly those driving themselves and Chris, Maggie and Louis after their morning accidents.
I think we really lucked out with such a fab group, and people we've continued to speak with since. (Even 2 months later when I'm writing this!)
Cooling off with friends and happy water, again
On night two the whole tour were staying together, all 100 of us in one homestay. Night two is known as the "big party" night because of this! When booking the tour you can choose to do either 3D2Ns, or 4D3Ns, we'd actually chosen the 3D2N tour along with Maggie and Louis, while the rest of our new friendship group had gone for the longer tour, with one extra night. This meant me, Chris, Maggie and Louis had a longgggg drive the following day, 170km to be exact! So knew we wanted to take it a little easier this night, maybe less happy water...
Nonetheless we still got stuck in with the fun, a few shots of happy water (chased wirh regular water this time) and even joined in a bit of karaoke again, of course. It was entertaining to see how certain songs unite everyone, no matter their age or where they're from. In this case it was Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody!
Me and Dao 🫶
Day three, the final day
The final day started with a sad goodbye to half our new friends who were continuing on for one more night, and a reshuffle of groups so all the 3 dayers were together, thankfully we still had Maggie and Louis with us 🫶
I cant lie though, I didn't love the 3rd day. I found it really physically taxing. Everyone talks about how sitting on the back of a bike as an EasyRider kills you bum and it goes numb, but for me sitting on a bike that long hurt my knees so much. I've always had problems with my left knee and just having it pointing out at 45° angle to sit behind Dao for 3 days just ruined it. It hurt so much. Everytime I got off the bike at a rest point I basically fell off it as I had to get off on the left of the bike and just couldnt hold any weight on my knee. The 3rd day was also lots of downhill driving, so there was lots of added pressure on my knees to hold myself up and not just slide into Dao.
Of course the drive was beautiful! We saw some incredible viewpoints, stopped at an amazing view of a crystal blue lake going between two towering mountains, and drove through some wonderful villages. I was just in so much pain at the same time.
By the time we got back to Mamas Homestay in Ha Giang I wasnt in a good mood, I was so tired, and my knees hurt so much I couldn't help but cry in pain. Chris was equally exhausted from having driven himself for 3 days. Which lead to us snapping at each other, which we never like. We made up over a couple pizzas for dinner (the Homestay was miles from town and only served pizza, hence that for dinner both nights at the homestay).
After a few hours to chill out, shower and repack away our small weekend bags into our big bags, we hopped on our nightbus to Hanoi and said goodbye to Louis and Maggie😢
Overall thoughts
The Ha Giang Loop has been, and I think will remain one of the clear highlights of our whole trip. Despite being physical defeated on the last day, I loved this trip so much. We made such amazing friends who we still speak to now, saw some absolutely incredible sights, experiences landscapes like I've never seen before, and got to spend some good quality time with locals from Ha Giang. For many drivers, the reason they choose to work as drivers for the loop is to get exposure to English people so they can learn English through conversations and the use of google translate where communications is too broken.
The 3 days overall was such a new, exciting, soemtimes terrifying, but wonderful experience and stands out from anything else we'd done before. And it do it again in a heartbeat.
I've LOVED writing this blogpost and reliving the whole trip, looking back through photos and remembering funny moments like our dance class on night one. I hope you enjoy reading it just as much as I loved writing it🫶
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