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We arrived flying Emirates on Saturday afternoon at Noi Bai airport in Hanoi. With an e-visa you receive a stamp with the entrance dat in your passport at the passport control. We were picked up by old friends, but wanted to buy a SIM card first. I asked for a Viettel SIM card at a shop boasting Viettel signs ton your right in the arrivals hal. They showed me several packages and I chose a package that offered 6gb data a day and some free minutes to phone inside Vietnam. It costed me 12 euro which I payed by credit card. They inserted my new SIM card and I was on the way out. 

Days later I discovered they had given me a Vinaphone SIM card instead of a Viettel SIM card. So beware if you visit this first shop on the right after coming in the arrivals hall. I had no issues using it during my first days in Hanoi though. 

The first two and a half days we spent staying at the beautiful town house of one of our friends built by Vinhomes at Ocean Park, a new residential area 30 to 40 minute drive from the old centre of Hanoi at the other side of the Red river. We visited several Vietnamese friends who stuffed us with piles of delicious foods!! Most of our friends now own a house or appartement owned by the Vin group, a conglomerate who builds houses, schools, roads, public transport systems, hospitals and even a university all around Hanoi. Where Hanoi only counted 5 districts when we lived there 30 years ago, it now already counts 12 districts. 

On the morning of the third day we were picked up by a 7 seater minivan, for a private transfer from Hanoi to Ha Giang, arranged by Flipside in Ha Gaing. The 6 hour ride was comfortable with several stops to eat or drink or use the toilet. The driver on the other hand was almost continuously talking on his two mobile phones, sometimes even at the same time, videocalling his family, all without using ears or a handsfree set, which is totally prohibited in Vietnam. What was even more annoying was that he often talked really loud on the phone. We did not eat at the lunch stop which looked very uninviting. When arriving in Ha Giang we asked him to stop at a Viettel store to buy a Viettel SIM card for our phones, since the Vinaphone has bad reception on the Ha Giang loop. The driver reacted annoyed and wanted to bring us to the Flipside hostel while we had arranged to be taken directly to our booked hotel, An’s Home Ha Giang at the other side of Ha Giang. He called his office who eventually told to bring us to our hotel. He first refused to make a stop at the Viettel store saying the store was closed because of a holiday but I was sure this was not the case. After some insisting from our side he eventually stopped at the store (which was open) where we both bought a tourist SIM card with 4 gb daily, and some phone minutes for 30 days for 210000 dong ( 8 euro) per SIM card. You need to bring your passport which they register. We were then taken to An’s Home which is a bit out of the center of Ha Giang, a totally new place, with a beautiful open dining area, a dorm and wonderful private rooms with adjacent bath rooms. We checked in, received a welcome drink and checked on a list what we wanted for breakfast, which is served between 6 and 9 AM. An hour later someone from Flipside brought our motorbike, a Honda 150CC, which we rented for four days at 20 dollar a day, and we added insurance at 8 dollar a day. The bike has a bagage rack, and they add a plastic bag and something to tie a backpack to the bagage rack. We packed a trekking backpack and a smaller back pack for daily items. We tied the backpack to the luggage rack, and I took the smaller backpack on my back, sitting on the pillion. 

We checked the motorbike, did a little tour with it, checking brakes, lights, …. signed the contract, and paid for the motorbike and the transfers in cash. The handover went smoothly. We also sent a message to Linh Lanh from Flipside about the behavior of our transfer driver and ask if maybe we could have another driver for the return transfer. 

We drove to Ha Gaing centre, stopping at a gas station for petrol (xang in Vietnamese), which  costed around 21000 dong ( 0,80 euro) per liter. The tank can take about 8 liter, a full tank can cover about 300 km according to the person bringing from Flipside. But we planned to refill whenever we could. We ate at Mr Hung, a place where you find mostly western food on the menu, a nice place, the food was OK, nothing really special but with friendly staff. 

The next morning we had Pho Ga for breakfast, an orange juice, coffee and tea and a fresh fruit platter. We checked out, (you can pay by card or cash), prepared the motorbike and started our first day of the loop. We made a stop in Ha Giang city to buy a headscarf to wear under our helmet. Until recently you needed a travel permit to do the loop, since Ha Giang is a border area, which you could get from the immigration office in Ha Giang for 10 USD, but this is no longer necessary. Only if you stay in a homestay in Lung Cu near the border of China they might ask for it. But for the loop, this requirement has been lifted recently! Many travel agencies and guides still tell guests they need it and get it for them from the immigration office, I guess it is easy income for both. 

We had decided to do the loop counter clockwise, so we left Ha Giang taking the QL4C in the direction of Quan Ba and took a left on an unnamed road in the direction of Thai An. It is a beautiful road and you have several lookouts and viewpoints, some waterfalls, and several little bars where you can stop for a drink. We were quite alone at the start, but later several groups of easy riders passed us or made a stop at one of the viewpoints. We were a lot older than most of the tourists and also one of the few driving the loop on our own. At the end of the road you take a right at the fork onto road 181 to Du Gia. We stopped for lunch at a homestay in a little Hmong village, the restaurant is called Duong Thuong Eco house, on Google maps it is called Quan Nho. A very beautiful place where we had a great lunch: boiled rice with cabbage, soup, beef with onion and pork with tomatoes. Together with two coffees we pais 220000 dong (8,36 euro)! They are friendly but speak no English. They rang a friend who speaks English to whom you explain what you want to eat. We just let them prepare what they had. 

The road became smaller here and was not always in good condition, but very manageable with our motorbike. On this road we again passed some nice viewpoints, do not miss the Lung Ho panorama, and just before Du Gia there is a really nice coffee stop, where you can also eat, called Lalaland coffee – Tea and fastfood. They have a nice adjacent shop with handicraft items made by the Hmong with nice designs, often hand made out of hemp and dyed with indigo.

We drove to our hotel, Chien’s Lodge Du Gia, where we had booked one of their little bungalows above the water with great views of the rice fields from their panorama windows. We had a shower, took a cold drink at the restaurant area, and then left for Du Gia waterfall. If you want to find it just put Tham Luong waterfall into google maps. The road to the waterfall is very nice, especially during the golden hour just before sundown. The waterfall is underwhelming though and very crowded with young people trying to impress each other by jumping of a cliff. Far too touristy for us, so we quickly took a picture and turned back. 

At 7:30 PM we took dinner at our lodge together with a French couple. We had boiled rice with several plates, morning glory with garlic, chicken, beef, tofu, egg, … a really nice dinner. For drinks they have a honesty system, you write down on the board what you take and you pay for it when checking out. 

That evening we started to amend our travel plans because they had announced a super typhoon that would make landfall on Saturday evening, and could already cause heavy rain and wind in the whole of Northern Vietnam starting Friday afternoon. Our four day tour would normally end on Saturday evening and we would go to Hanoi on Sunday. We decided to drive directly from Dong Van to Ha Giang on the third day and asked to advance our private transfer to Hanoi with a day, leaving early morning on Saturday. Rain and wind would probably start already on Friday afternoon or evening and on Saturday it will probably rain a lot already, but we would reach Hanoi early afternoon on Saturday, hours before the storm would reach the coast of Vietnam. That way we could sit out the storm in our hotel in Hanoi, still see our friends on Monday and hopefully fly on Wednesday. 

The next morning we got up in time, and immediately checked out because we had decided to take breakfast in the Lalaland coffee spot just outside Du Gia. (We paid cash.) Leaving so early in the morning gave us beautiful views of the mountains with the mist slowly dissipating. When we reached Lalaland they had no food on the menu, all was sold out. So we took a drink and some KitKat and snickers. The first part between Du Gia and Meo Vac is really beautiful, and so early on the larger groups of easy riders were not on the road yet. The road here has quite some potholes though. On the way to Meo Vac from Dua Gia a little past the intersection with the 181 road you pass the relics of an old French fortress at Lung Ho panorama. This French post was built and completed in the years 1935 – 1940. Most loopers visit the French fort in Dong Van but skip this one. Closer to Meo Vac the road was a two lane new road but the views were not as beautiful. In Meo Vac we first stopped for a drink and on the way out stopped for lunch, we both had fried rice and an accompanying soup in a restaurant on the QL4C in the direction of Dong Van called Nhà sàn cơm lẩu, a rather large place, very clean, where we paid 100000 dong (3,8 euro) for two plates of fried rice. After Meo Vac starts the Ma Pi Leng pass. We skipped the Hmong village just outside of Meo Vac and also did not drive to the riverside for a boat ride. Instead we entered Ma Pi Leng panorama, a kind of café with a great view of the river passing through the canyon. The Sông Nho Quế river has a deep light green color. You have to pay entrance to the cafe, the entrance costs 30000 per person, but if you pay 60000 per person a drink of choice is included. We then continued in the direction of Dong Van over the Ma Pi Leng pass that is said to be the most beautiful part of the loop. I really have to disagree here, I found the area between Ha Giang and Du Gia and around Du Gia a lot prettier. We drove straight to our stay: Khoi Panorama, with rooms in a beautiful traditional wooden Hmong house. There is no air conditioning but the room was nice and cool and you have a fan. The room is beautifully decorated and you have a nice bathroom, coffee and tea facilities, a hairdryer…. The price is a bit higher than the other places, but if you are looking for a quiet and authentic place, this is it. ( cost was 73 euro, dinner and breakfast included)

We left our luggage at our room and since it was only 3 PM we decided to drive to Lung Cu near the border with China. There is not so much to see but the flagpole, but the road up there is really nice, and on the way back the light was perfect for beautiful pictures. At 7 PM we had dinner at the guesthouse. Boiled rice with several accompanying dishes: chicken with coconut and lemongrass, tofu, omelette, cabbage and squash. All fresh and tasty dinner with the crickets in the background. The only downside is a karaoke bar on the main road making a lot of noise that can be heard in the guesthouse. Breakfast is served between 7 and 10 AM and you can choose between Banh Mi (bread with omelette) or Pho Bo (noodlesoup with beef)

At seven we had our breakfast with a view, after which we checked out and started our third and last day of the loop. We drove out of Dong Van to our first stop at de Hmong Kings’ palace (Vuong Chinh Sinh Palace) at Sa Phin village. It is a 19th century wooden palace in a mixture of Vietnamese en Chinese architecture. You pay 30000 dong (1,14 euro) per person to get in. It is a wonderful old building, with a number of rooms that don’t seem to end. We were there at around 9 AM in the morning and the place was almost empty, just a few other Vietnamese visitors. 

We then continued in the direction of Yen Minh and Ha Giang, which is about 145 km in total. The views between Dong Van and Yen Minh are really stunning. What really surprised us was that so many motorcycle groups were still on their first or second day of the loop and that they would be driving on Saturday and Sunday, when the super typhoon would pass over North Vietnam. 

We made several short stops along the way to make photographs of the surrounding, like around Chin Khoanh and the Tham Ma pass. We got stopped by the police but since we got the correct national and international drivers’ license, we did not get fined. They were very friendly. A bit further we stopped for the view. An American couple also stopped and asked if we had payed the fine. They had to pay 1 million dong each, since they did not have to correct international drivers license and were now out of cash. Too many people still start doing the loop without knowing about which international drivers’ license is accepted or even without a proper motorbike drivers’ license. The police had told them that if they did not pay they would confiscate their rented motorbikes for seven days. 

From Yen Minh where would have stayed in Mam Da homestay, we continued in the direction of Quan Ba, and just before the village of Tam Son had lunch. We had a noodlesoup with duck before driving up to Lung Khuy cave (dragon in the rock). You have to take a small paved road off the main road, that brings you to a parking area where you pay 5000 dong to park, and then have to walk about 500 meters, going up stairs which was quite the workout in the heat at noon. You then reach the ticketing office where you get an entrance ticket for 30000 dong (1,14 euro). The cave is quite large and deep and 400 million years old making it the largest cave of the Dong Van Karst Platteau geopark. 

We then headed for Heaven’s Gate, wanting to see the fairy bossom, two mountains that look like a pair of breasts. We put Heaven’s Gate in Google maps, but when we arrived could not figure out which were the two mountains. When we asked the owner of the cafe he said we had passed it already. We did not want to turn back so we missed this peculiar view. If you do not want to miss it put in ‘Diem Dung Chan Quan Ba’ or ‘Quan Ba visitor centre’ in Google maps  when coming back on the QL4C after visiting the Lung Khuy cave. We were stopped by the police a second time closer to Ha Giang. This cop did not even want to see our national drivers license, once he saw we had the right IDP he let us drive on. On the other side of the road a foreigner sat next to his bike with a sad face. They probably confiscated his bike… We had another stop at one of the cafes with a lookout for another drink, and then steadily continued to An’s home, our stay in Ha Giang,. 

What really surprised us that on this last day, we passed so many large groups starting their first day of a three or four day loop tour, with a super typhoon expected for the next day. When we starting asking if they knew about the typhoon coming, one guide of a group of easy riders just answered ‘We don’t care’. A small group of older Americans said that they were not worried and that they could stand a bit of rain. We did not understand how everyone took the possible danger so lightly. Unfortunately, two days later, we suddenly saw a facebook post on one of the Ha Giang facebook groups saying that the day after the typhoon it started raining continuously on the Ha Giang loop, with washouts, landslides and flooding, blocked roads. Many people were unable to continue and got  between Dong Van and Meo Vac and there were several fatalities. We were shocked that the Ha Giang tour operators did not seem to care for the safety of their travelers. The government had issued a strong warning to all provinces in the North and had asked everyone to make sure that people were brought to safety if they were in a high risk zone for flooding and landslides. There had already been 11 death in the month of July because of floods and landslides….

We checked in at An’s home, and started to plan when to return to Hanoi. Our friends in Hanoi said we should stay in Ha Giang till the typhoon passed, so we asked the Flipside manager to again postpone our transfer to Hanoi to Sunday, which was the initial plan, and decided to stay another day in Ha Giang and wait for the typhoon to pass hopefully with not too much damage. We had a nice dinner at An’s home which was far too copious, we had ordered 4 dishes and rice… Be careful wen ordering food, they advise you to take quite a lot of food and you end up with a lot more than you can eat. Though the rooms are really cheap the food is quite expensive in comparison. The guy from whom we had hired the motorbikes came to pick them up that evening and refunded us the fourth day. A really nice gesture without us asking for it. Linh Lanh and her staff from Flipside are very communicative. The motorbikes were rented out by Ngan Ha, a hostel in Ha Giang who also organizes loop tours. I can highly recommend both companies, although I think Flipside does not really organise tours or have a homestay, they are just a travel agent who work together with several homestays, motorbike rentals, bus and limousines companies and guides…

The next morning we got a late breakfast at around 8 AM and whiled the rest of the day away reading, looking at the rain, writing, eating…. while our Hanoi friends kept us updated on the typhoon that hit Hanoi quiet hard. We gave some laundry in the morning which was returned washed and dry early afternoon. We had some typical Ha Giang five-color sticky rice for lunch, the sticky rice is colored using different  plants. In the evening we took a light dinner, we were not very hungry because we almost hadn’t moved during the whole day.

The next morning we ate banh cuon for breakfast, also a typical Ha Giang dish of steamed rice rolls filed with minced meat or mushrooms with a broth of vegetables or meat as a side dish. Really delicious. At around 10 AM our car that would bring us to Hanoi came to pick us up. 

The day after the super typhoon had passed over Hanoi it rained the whole way from Ha Giang to Hanoi but luckily all roads were open and clear. ( days later this road would close due heave landslides) When we arrived in Hanoi at our friend’s place to pick up our luggage, the driver noticed a flat tire and called someone to come and repair it. Since after almost two hours the situation had not yet been resolved our friends brought us to our hotel in the center of Hanoi. We had to walk the last 500 m to the hotel since the road was blocked by a fallen tree. We checked in at La Siesta Classic Ma May and were brought to our very beautiful room on the top floor with a view over Hanoi. We then decided to do some shopping before dinner. We walked to Hang Gai and Hang Bong streets and went in Tan My, Ginkgo, Tired City and Cerender stores. All four are really worth a visit. Tan My for embroidered table cloth and bedding, Ginkgo and Tired City for original tees, and Cerender for ceramics. We had dinner at Met in Hang Trong street, a really nice place to eat Vietnamese food, they also have vegetarian choices. They have three more restaurants in the old quarter. 

The next morning after a really great buffet breakfast, (shout out for the yoghurt), we continued our shopping spree in Hanoi. We first went to Van Mieu street with a Grab taxi, and visited Indigo store and Craft Link. I especially liked Indigo who has beautiful indigo and minority inspired clothes, bags, scarfs and pillow covers. There is a small factory on the top floor where they dye the indigo fabrics and where several seamstresses can adjust or make new clothes. 

We walked back to Hang Gai street and bought an embroidered table cloth at Viet Cuong shop (Hang Gai 62) just opposite Tan My, their prices are like 3 to 4 times cheaper than Tan My. We bought a tee at Tired City for my husband. I had already bought a blouse at Indigo. 

We then rushed to the hotel to get changed and walk to our goodbye lunch with our friends at Hanoi Garden restaurant. The food here is really great when it comes to Vietnamese dishes. We went back to the hotel to unpack some presents that were gifted to us by our friends, and when we finally went out planning to walk to the opera house, we got stuck during a thunderstorm at Café Gaing where we tried the egg coffee and egg cacao. The place has a second floor with three rooms and a small terrace. You have to try their egg coffee at least once when in Hanoi. We never arrived at the opera house, but walked back to our hotel after sitting out the rain for almost 1,5 hour at Café Giang. We decided to have dinner at the Hanoi Food Culture restaurant just around the corner. The place seems to attract foreigners on a private tour of Vietnam on their first night in Hanoi. But the food is nice, and they also have vegetarian options. 

The next morning we enjoyed the great breakfast again and took a Grab to the airport around 9:30 AM. It took us only 40 minutes to get at the airport so we were quite early. The hotel advised us to leave the hotel only 2 hours before our flight, since you only had to be 1 hour before your flight at the domestic airport, but we did not want to take any risks, with the flooding from the typhoon and a lot of rain the previous night making traffic predictable.