‘You’ll leave humbled by the hospitality of people who have nothing more than the food they’ve grown’
north from Ha Giang is an endless string of second and third gear corners. You almost need to ride it twice – once to take in the otherworldly views of sharp mountain silhouettes stretching off into the distance and again to make the most of all the corners.
The best photo opportunities
We stop in Ha Long bay, taking a boat for two nights around the towering limestone stacks. These tall, rainforest-covered islands jutting out of the water are an incredible sight, best viewed from the comfort of the boat, perhaps with a glass of wine in hand. For views from the bike, you’re spoiled every day of the tour; the pointy mountains north of Ha Giang, the terraced rice paddies clinging to the side of impossible hills and, of course, endless scooters carrying ridiculous loads.
Things to do off the bike
Outside of riding, Vietnam is a well-told story in terms of its wars and scuffles. What’s interesting is to hear and see the war stories from the other side. Clearly some things are, well, told differently to how we may have heard them before, but there is a refreshing, if slightly disturbing, honesty to be found in one of the war museums’ displays dedicated to ‘Top American Hero Killer’. They don’t like to dress it up with fancy language here. A visit to the War Remnants museum and the Cu Chi tunnels south of Ho Chi Min city gives a brutal and frank display of the America-vietnam war from the Vietnamese perspective. It’s fascinating and informative, but you will be welling up by the time you leave.
What to eat and drink?
The food is pretty damn good in Vietnam, that often surprises people. There are great lunch stops in small villages and the high quality restaurants in the evenings always impress, especially in some of the more remote areas. On the drinks front the coffee is definitely an acquired taste. Despite the acres of coffee plantations, most of the stuff to drink there is this hot thick sludge that you stir ice into and add chicory. It’s like an espresso-sized cup of triple-strength espresso and if you want milk, it’ll be condensed and from a tin.
Is the traffic as mad as they say?
Intimidating to start with, once you get your head around riding in the city traffic of Vietnam’s capital city, Hanoi, it is actually a hoot. On first glance it does look like complete madness and many accidents all fighting to happen. But the daft thing is, it actually works. There are rules, there are traffic laws, but half the time, half the people are ignoring them. Everybody seems to do whatever they want and make space for everybody else. The key is not to look. If you look at someone, they’ll assume you’ve seen them and it’s now your responsibility to miss them. That goes for being a pedestrian as well as riding or driving. The other rule is the ‘do stupid things very slowly’ rule – it seems to be fine to u-turn a bus across five lanes of traffic, so long as you don’t look, don’t signal and do it slowly. After a while you get