Amazing Ha Giang Province

Following my adventure in Thanh Hoa I had a few days in Hanoi.  From Hanoi I went further north, and after the excursion there ended up back in Hanoi again.  I will wait to post about Hanoi until after my trip up north to a province called Ha Giang.

Many people make their way to the far north of Vietnam, but probably 90% of the tourists are clustered in or around the town of Sapa.  Sapa is renown for its beautiful surrounding countryside and indigenous minorities that reside in the area.  The population of Vietnam is over 85% ethnically Vietnamese, but significant numbers of minorities live in the north and central highlands.  Most of the country's people, and most of the ethnic Viet live near Vietnam's long, densely populated coastline.  In the north there are various ethnic groups including the Hmong, Dao, and Tay.

Sapa is in northwest Vietnam, close to the Chinese border

At first Sapa sounds nice, right?  Great scenery and an interesting mix of minorities with their own languages and traditions.  The problem is that the hoards of tourists have cheapened the experience.  I have not been, so I'll admit I cannot definitively say Sapa is overrated.  No person has the exact same experience or reaction to a place when traveling.  It is common to hear one traveler say they loved a place while another hated it (and both for legitimate reasons).

So I am sure many people had a good time in Sapa, but it just didn't sound like my style.  After traveling with foreigners for a lot of my trip and spending much time in touristy areas of Thailand I was ready to get away from that scene.  I also heard from backpackers who visited Sapa that the locals have become very dependent on tourists.  Many see foreigners as an easy source of income (which is the case in many touristy areas).  Parents will send their kids to beg for money or look for cheap handouts.  You can trek to an 'authentic' village and even stay overnight there.  Problem is the villagers see so many visitors the authenticity seems to have disappeared.

let me guess: the are trying to sell her something!

can you find Ha Giang province, the
northernmost part of Vietnam?

Instead of heading to Sapa I decided to take the road less traveled, to Ha Giang province.  Ha Giang is the largest city and kind of gateway to the extreme north of Vietnam along the Chinese border, home to rugged mountains, stunning scenery, ethnic minorities, and, thankfully, not many tourists.  During the four days I spent in the province I saw only a handful of Westerners.


The only reason why I knew about this alternative to Sapa was because of Sebastian, the French guy I met while in Vientaine.  He lived in Hanoi for one year and had traveled to Ha Giang twice.  Seb (as he liked to be called) kept going on about how beautiful the scenery was that he convinced me I had to check it out for myself.

And let me say I was definitely not disappointed.  In the town of Ha Giang I rented a motorbike and drove around for four days.  There was a nice loop you could drive leisurely in that amount of time, which is also what Seb had done on his two trips.  Along the route there were three or four small towns that had at least one guesthouse to stay overnight.

My motorbike and light luggage for the trip (I left my large
 backpack at the hotel in Ha Giang)

the scenery just outside of Ha Giang - a great start!

There were a few towns along the route such as this one,
which had at least one basic guest house

This is the standard sign in Vietnam
announcing you are now leaving town

I ended up driving much more than I needed to.  Not because I got lost (well I did get lost a few times) but because the countryside was so pretty that I didn't want to miss anything.  I've seen some amazing natural scenery, but there aren't many places that can top what I saw on this trip.  The freedom of my motorbike on the open road made it all the more special.  There were a few times I got caught in the rain or had to drive along a perilous stretch of road in the dark (not fun), but looking back on it now those experiences only added to the adventure.  It is probably best just to show you pictures so you can get an idea - unfortunately my camera is not the best:

On a side note driving through the rain is really not fun.  The faster you drive, the harder it seems to be raining.  What may only be a light rain when walking can feel like pin pricks on exposed skin when driving even 40 kilometers an hour.  The night before I returned the bike I didn't realize how long it would take me to get to the next town and had to drive in the dark.  Then it started to rain.  Then the road started to split off with no signs to point me in the right direction.  At one point I thought I may have to either sleep outside or try and find a house to ask for shelter.  Fortunately I found the correct road and made it to the town after only an hour or so of driving in the dark (it probably was even less than that, but felt like ages!).

Apart from natural beauty, the locals also made the trip quite an experience.  The level of English spoken was little to absolutely none, so I had some difficulties on that front (at least I could put the very basic Vietnamese I had been practicing to use).  Some of the people were very friendly, others just really surprised to see me.

(an aside on the language - Vietnamese is tonal, meaning a small change in pronunciation can drastically change the meaning.  Westerns often fret about the tonal nuances of Vietnamese.  I had my difficulties too.  For example, when trying to say Ha Giang I often got it wrong.  It didn't seem like a long way off, but people had no idea what I was talking about.  It was quite frustrating to say a word close to correct and get a blank / confused stare in response.  After one year in Hanoi Seb could still not pronounce the name of his street well enough so that cab drivers could understand!)

This is the road straddling the Chinese border; far off the
 tourist track - beware, little to no English!

The kids in particular were very shy.  A few times in the rural areas - and this is very rural, where many of the villagers will never leave their whole life - the kids were actually afraid of me.  Not just I don't want to talk to the stranger afraid.  A couple of them literally ran away!

But most weren't that scared.  To break the ice and have an excuse to say hello, I started carrying around little candies to hand out.  Sometimes I would ask to take a picture of them; many kids didn't seem so enthusiastic about a photo, but if I did take one they really got a kick out of seeing the photo on my display screen.  After handing out candies for a day I thought, hmm, how would this sound back home - a stranger stopping his motorcycle and handing out candy to little kids along the road?  I was a step away from being a child abductor or pedophile!  But at least I didn't drive around in a windowless van!

some kids were happy to see me...

...others scared...

...and many just plain confused!

One of the best routes I took was by accident.  I went the wrong way at a crossroads and ended up on a Vietnamese-Chinese border road high up in the mountains.  The views were incredible.  To me the area had an end-of-the-world like feel.  I met a couple of kids high up there on the border route, kids that may have never seen anyone like me before.  It was a bit sad though because they didn't look great.  You could tell there was a lot of poverty up there.  The kids had few clothes, were dirty, and had snotty noses.  Yet I still found them cute too.  I wish I had done more exploring but because of time constraints had to get going back on the correct path.

After four days of riding it was time to turn in the bike.  It was a great experience but I was also glad to have a break - my ass was really sore!  Once I returned the bike I spent another night in Ha Giang city and caught a bus to Hanoi the following morning.