In an ever-more connected world, finding somewhere that still feels ‘off the beaten track’ is a bit like finding that pot at the end of the rainbow.
So when I heard about the Hà Giang loop – a 300-mile motorbike journey through the mountains of northern Vietnam that promised untouched landscapes of soaring limestone karsts and kaleidoscopic canyons – my ears pricked up. I booked a flight, and joined a group tour with a local operator.
Located close to the Chinese border and around 180 miles from Hanoi, between plunging slopes and sheer-drop mountain passes, this hairpin-dotted loop – first built in the 1960s to connect rural villagers to the city of Hà Giang – was almost completely unknown to tourists until recently. Then ‘Easy Rider’ drivers (motorbike drivers who take others on the back as a passenger) began offering tours to intrepid types keen to take in its mystical landscapes.
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Having heard of the perils, I considered getting a driver – then threw caution to the wind and decided to drive myself, motivated by the sheer love of unadulterated, breeze-in-the-hair freedom (and possibly a bit of ego).
As we set off on the first morning, bleary-eyed after a seven-hour sleeper bus from Hanoi, our guide David warned us we’d be driving “some of the most dangerous roads in Vietnam”. But fuelled by a vague confidence that navigating the pot-holed roads of southeast Asia had given me over the years, I stuck with it.
It was certainly intense. The first day was a fairly leisurely drive. From the city of Hà Giang, we followed a wide, smooth highway, traversing an emerald rainforest as a sea of hump-shaped hills rose in the distance. Then we began ascending into the clouds, pine-carpeted mountains piercing through the cold, biting mist.
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Along the way, we passed colourfully dressed members of the H’mong hill tribe, the largest of more than 40 ethnic groups in the Hà Giang province, and tiny remote villages where children waved as we rode by. Locals sped by on mopeds,…
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