Ha Giang Loop
Ha Giang
My obsession with riding a motorcycle on the Ho Chi Minh Trail germinated over decades. You won’t find much about that journey destination when searching the internet or YouTube. What you will find is the Ha Giang Loop, one of the premier if not the premier motorcycle destination in the world. Type Ha Giang into Google.
Ha Giang is a city and a province tucked in the Northeast of Vietnam, along the border with China, and some 6 hours by bus away from Hanoi.
The scenery is spectacular, dominated by the limestone mountains and karsts like those that make up Ha Long Bay. Vertical is the blaring quality of Ha Giang. Tiny highways snake along the edges of mountains, many without guardrails, and foot/motorbike trails make fractal traces into the valleys.
It’s Complicated
The people of the region are some 22 ethnicities including Mong and many have their own languages, other than Vietnamese. Local fashions feature vibrant colors. Everyone seems to be busy and working. The towns are villages are bustling with street markets. There are friendly, happy kids everywhere. And domestic animals running loose.
What the Ho Chi Minh Road is to remote, the Ha Giang Loop is to complicated. Challenges include traffic, mountain roads with unimaginable vertical drops, landslides, weather, and police. Add complicated logistics and I decided to do the Ha Giang Loop as 4 days and 3 nights with a guide.
World Famous Motorcycle Destination
Once again I was aboard a Honda XR150 and Lauren was on a Honda Blade. We were joined by a software engineer from Brazil in his mid 30s, also on a Honda Blade. Our guide was a 22 year old Vietnamese man who speaks beautiful English, riding a Honda Blade. We were a gang of four.
As you discovered when you Googled Ha Giang Loop, the area is famous for scenery and motorcycle adventure. It attracts young people, generally the backpacker crowd, from around the world – but mostly Europeans. (I only encountered one American there.) Flipflops, hoodies, and shorts are common, making it clear that most Ha Giang Loop riders have little or no motorcycle experience. Hence, significant checkpoints and police presence.
Easyriders
Most of the backpacker set described above stay in hostels that provide group motorcycle tours. Known regionally as easyriders, most of the tourist riders sit on the back of a motorcycle while a licensed professional Vietnamese rider drives the motorcycle. Helmets, shin and elbow pads are generally provided. These hostel-based tours will form a group of 15 to 20 motorcycles and ride as a group. Think swarm.
I observed that perhaps 75% of the tourist riders were young women from Europe. Some were traveling with friends while a few were solo adventurers. I had to admire their courage and was left to wonder, where are the young men?
Night Zero
We arrived in the town of Ha Giang in mid-afternoon. We received our motorcycles and were met by a young man, a former military officer, who led us on an orientation ride around and above the town. I suspect the ride was as much about assessing our skill levels before going on the loop as independent riders, ones not on the back behind a professional driver, as it was about letting us get familiar with the altitude, roads, and machines.
The road or paved path up to a coffee house high above the city was steep and treacherous given the sharp, deep, paved gutters on each side. Not for the faint of heart.
The ride revealed a sticky brake problem with my bike that had to be resolved before tackling the ride. Meanwhile, the young man who led the shakedown ride made a passionate plea to Lauren to be her driver for the trip, moving her to the back. She was having none of it.
Saddle Up
We mustered early morning outside the hotel, met up with our Brazilian companion and our young guide. In a manner of no urgency that would prove to be a pattern, we rode out of town and onto the Ha Giang Loop.
Another pattern soon revealed itself. Speed limits are relatively low in Vietnam. Unless otherwise posted, speed is limited to 50 kph (31 mph) on rural highways and 40 kph (25 mph) in villages. Even 31/25 seems too fast when plunging through streets full of pedestrians and animals. And in a dangerous move perpetuated by the backpacker crowd, small children run toward motorcycles with Westerners aboard in hopes of scoring a high five greeting maneuver
No Need for Speed
Possessing an agile imagination about what could go wrong (imagine an ugly American hurting a local child by accident), I would not speed through villages or through the beautiful countryside I came so far to see. The guide did not possess such an imagination and generally rode much faster. The effect was to spread our group of four over a long distance as the hares, the guide and Brazilian, sped far ahead of me, the tortoise. Lauren’s speedometer was inoperative so unaware of her speed, she was the Slinky between us. Common practice was for the guide to stop at the far side of a village and hope that I would recognize him, a particular Vietnamese guy on a ubiquitous motorbike, when I emerged some minutes later. The guide’s objective seemed to be to get to the next rest stop sooner in order to sit by the fire with other guides for longer.
A thoroughly personable fellow, the guide never asked to exchange local mobile phone numbers or shared destinations for each day – two simple and fundamental ways to mitigate the risks of separation. Like I said, no imagination. Our relationship was friendly … but tense.
Despite the relatively slow speeds, piloting a motorcycle on the Ha Giang Loop demands one’s constant attention. Every. Second.
Spectacular is overused in describing the scenery but still understates the beauty of Ha Giang. Every curve seems to reveal a new postcard-worthy vista. It is worth stopping every few hundreds meters to take in the views.
Traffic
We were on the Ha Giang Loop in the off season. We had long stretches of road to ourselves. When traffic, consisting of other motorbikes, cars (also touring no doubt), trucks, buses, and construction equipment, happened, it could be terrifying.
There are unwritten rules apparently granting priorities between vehicles, with size being the predominant factor. Trucks and buses especially, don’t seem constrained by lanes or what we think of as personal space. Speed when diving into a blind curve, especially right turns, has to be prudently managed … because sometimes there is an oncoming truck or bus in your lane. Riders toot their horns before entering those curves supposedly as a warning of their approach, but equally to steel their courage.
Easyrider Flocks
Flocks of 10+ sometimes 20+ easyriders are common. We encountered most at rest stops. Some we passed head on which gave the opportunity to see the faces of the young tourists, again mostly women, seemingly expressing awe, happiness, and occasional terror.
Encountering gaggles of easyriders going the same direction seemed to annoy our impatient guide. Knowing the area very well, he would try to overtake the tourist blob by exiting the highway, darting up steep paths and narrow alleyways, in an attempt to cut across and in front of the group. This served to keep our adrenal glands at full throttle and forced the farm and domestic animals to practice agile evasive maneuvers. It never worked, by the way, which meant we would have to try again in another kilometer or so. Apparently our guide was not taught the story of the tortoise and the hare.
Mountain Roads & Unimaginable Drops
There is a rule in motorcycle driving: the bike goes where you look. Concentration has to be totally on the road while on the loop. When stealing a glance otherwise, the look has to be up or around the magnificent vista. Fortunately there are many turnouts that afford the opportunity to stop and take it in.
Looking at the edge of the road sometimes reveals no guardrails and edges that lead to oblivion. You simply cannot look at the abyss when riding a motorcycle.
Landslides
The vertical nature of Ha Giang combined with wet weather mean landslides are common. Some are modest in scale and litter the roadway with rocks that have to be slalomed around. Still others take out entire sections of roadway and result in various stages of cleanup and reconstruction. Fresh slides mean picking a path through rock gardens and ruts at walking speed.
Older landslides are in various stages of reconstruction. Tip: always make eye contact with the excavator operator before passing between the machine and the mountain or the cliff.
I was in awe of the men and women of the road construction crews. I saw them moving basketball-sized and larger boulders by hand while wearing sandals. There were open air sleeping platforms with thatched roofs for them to spend the night or wait out passing storms
Weather
We rode the Ha Giang Loop in January. It was cool to cold. It was often wet, ranging from fog and mist to rain showers. The pavement was wet most of the time.
Moisture and slopes make for mud. A lot of mud flows onto and over the roadway. Mud is more slippery than water. This must factor into the mental calculus required to negotiate curves, traffic, and dodge obstacles.
Fog, mist, and rain makes you wet on a motorcycle. Even slow speeds drive water around and through clothing. We wore rain suits, gloves, full helmets with face shields, and plastic booties over our feet. We were soaked through most days. Soggy heavy gloves that if taken off, can hardly be put back on.
Face shields, which unlike your car’s windshield have no wipers, which had to be wiped and raised to be able to see. Raising the face shield means rain and moisture are driven into the helmet. Safety pads, boots, and overcoats get soaked. Six hours or more in these conditions are miserable.
Chances are good that everything will not fully dry overnight. Failing to keep the pack with all belongings dry can be devastating.
These discomforts do not outweigh the benefits and wonder of riding the Ha Giang Loop via motorcycle, but they do require courage and will.
Police
For all the reasons mentioned above, riding the Ha Giang Loop can be hazardous if the risks are not well-managed. Add the appeal of a spreading reputation as being one of or the most outstanding motorcycle tours in the world, and people flock to ride the loop. Many are inexperienced or even first time riders I described as young backpackers in flipflops, shorts, and hoodies.
Accidents happen. The region and the population depend on tourism for livelihoods and economic prosperity. Beyond tragic, injuries and death are bad for the tourism business.
A significant police presence is distributed at various places on the Ha Giang Loop. I charitably posit that visible and proactive police promote safety, encourage obeying the laws, and serve to get unlicensed and inexperienced riders on the back of the motorcycle as easyriders behind a professional operating the bike.
Ride the Ha Giang Loop as a non-local and you will be stopped by the police. We are easy to spot. Lauren and I were stopped 3 times and no doubt closely observed many more. I will go into detail in another segment of the story.
