Rare Adventures

Tag: Ha Gaing Loop

Ha Gaing Loop – Ma Pi Leng Pass and an early morning waterfall

Day 2 of the Ha Gaing loop started in Dong Van with good news, the rain and cloud had cleared and we had beautiful blue skies. Even better, no hangover from the Happy Water which our driver, Mr Happy, had provided in great volume the night before. He had promised that we would have no aftereffects, though lack of sleep from the late night was still an issue.

We loaded ourselves into the SUV and headed for the Chinese border for views into their superpower neighbour. Basically, we were only a few miles from the border so it wasn’t long before we were staring across the vast expanse of a valley across to China.

During Covid, the Chinese were clearly bored or had a spare million workers, so they erected a still fence along the 800 miles of border with Vietnam. It is also not clear what the border is for, it is to keep the Chinese in or the Vietnamese out. Either way we could see the fence stretching in both directions with guard towers long the way.

After waving at the Chinese guards we settled into the SUV for a long day of driving. One of the most memorable things about this trip was hiding in plain sight. The Vietnamese subsistence farmers have used every inch of these mountains to cultivate crops. The soil appears to be sparse, so wherever there is a nook or cranny in the rocks, they have filled it with soil from the valley and planted corn.

Mr Happy advised us that all this corn is so that they can drink lots of happy water, but I’m thinking that it might reflect just how hard the mountain life is for these dispersed communities.

The next big event was the Ma Pi Leng Pass which is part of the Dong Van Geopark, this is an amazing feat of humanity, a road built in the 1950s and dug by hand by thousands of labourers, opened up a pass that rose to 1800m. It is a really stunning site and there is a monument at the top to all they labourers that lost their lives in what appeared to be brutal conditions.

We trekked up the mountain for a better look out, and there were corn crops everywhere and we were amazed at how hard life is for the locals. The climb also gave us a view of the beautiful reservoir in the valley, once again, man made but provides a stunning contrast to the mountains.

It is quite difficult to pick out more highlights as the Limestone Karst landscape rolls through the mountains for miles and miles as the roads wind through the valleys and over more passes eventually dropping down into our overnight village.

We stayed at a little village and stayed at a hostel, which inevitably had a karaoke machine that the bikers loved and the Dutch made extensive use of before heading off to a night club in the village.

The highlight of Day 3 was the early start, before breakfast we headed off early to avoid the crowed, Mr Happy led the way along the valley promising us something special, and it was, we arrived at a stunning waterfall, and I might be 66 years old but there is nothing quite like jumping off a waterfall into freezing cold water to start the day.

The final part of the trip was the drive back to Ha Gaing and the bus back to Hanoi. The highlight of this having an egg coffee at the top of one of the valleys watching the easy riders coming up valley and hoping that we would see our lad Sam in one of the groups with his tour operator Bong.

A last coffee with Mr Happy overlooking Ha Gaing and it was time to board the bus.

The Ha Giant loop was a lot of fun, a lot of driving and we were very grateful for the company and humour of Mr Happy who made the time go quickly.

Time to head for Ha Long Bay and the adventures that away.

19/07/2026
Ha Gaing Loop adventures – Day 1 to Dong Van

Before we could do the Ha Gaing Loop we had to get out of SaPa, and that proved more challenging than we expected. An hour to go 1.5km in a cab seemed ample but nope, the place was still gridlocked at 8.45am with people leaving the celebrations, so the trip to the bus station ended with us abandoning the cab and running down the middle of the road with bags on our bags in scene straight out of “Race Round the World”.

We arrived at the bus station bang on time, only to find multitudes of buses leaving in all directions except Ha Gaing, my head was swivelling in all directions until I accepted the situation was useless, found our travel agent who said our bus was late and not to panic.

So, at 1030, and after much anxiety, we boarded our sleeper bus to Ha Gaing. This was our first sleeper bus and it was quite an experience; they are beautiful things. I had a flat bed, that sort of propped up, a little cabin with a privacy curtain, lots of switches to fiddle with that changed the lighting atmosphere.

Eventually the bus pulled out, I laid down, and that was that for the next 6 hours, I couldn’t read as I was on my back and the bus rolled around, so I just listened to podcasts and stared out the window and eventually we were dropped off in Ha Gaing, and I certainly wasn’t ready for bed !

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Ha Gaing is a nice, clean and friendly town and we stayed at the De La Mont hotel that was really excellent. I went out for a walk and found myself having a beer in a little street café, at which point the clouds opened and once again I was drenched.

Ha Gaing itself seems to have absolutely nothing to do, in the centre, for food there is only very basic street kitchens and getting something to eat proved very difficult, so not a place to hang around. For such a famous location, tourism seems to have passed the main town by, I guess the bikers must stay out of town in hostels or something.

Next day, we were picked up for the Ha Gaing loop tour by our guide Mr Happy, and things took a definite turn for the better. We had a nice SUV to travel in and we had a guide who spoke excellent English and was clearly going to be a bundle of fun, so we settled down to 3 days of good company.

The Ha Gaing Loop can be many different routes, using the road system that runs through the mountains of Northern Vietnam and along the border with China, The actual route you take will depend on your tour guide and mode of transport, and as we set out from Ha Gaing it was raining again and I was feeling very smug that I had chosen the SUV option as we watched the bikers in their waterproofs huddling from the rain.

Mr Happy was a great guy and taking us to all the interesting places. The scenery is quite stunning, the Limestone Karst landscape in the Dong Van Geopark is covered in little peaks that jut out of valleys and mountains full of caves.

Unfortunately, the views on the first day we spoiled by the low cloud and fog, but that is life. We went to see the Booby Mountains, basically two hills side by side that look like a pair of tits and everyone does this photo!

This area of Vietnam literally was bandit country, ruled by warlords over the centuries and they seemed to take a lot of delight in beating of the Chinese and more latterly the imperial French. They united under one leader in the 20^th century and is one of their legendary figures, so we visited his palace, which wasn’t very exciting but had to be done.

The landscape was constantly changing and after one long climb through the mist was arrived at the top of a mountain pass, that looked every bit like I would imagine the moon, A rocky landscape with minimal soil anywhere, but there was a cafe, where the locals were blasting out their drum ‘n bass tracks to keep the travelers happy, strange but true.

We also started to notice that wherever we went on the mountains, the locals had used every crevice to grow plants, in particular, corn. According to Mr Happy this was so the could make plenty of Happy Water, their local brew.

Eventually we arrived in the down of Dong Van, our tour operator had organised a decent hotel which was nice. After a quick scrub up we went out for dinner with Mr Happy. We ended up in a big dining warehouse with lots of other groups who were travelling by bike, it was at this point things took an unexpected turn of events when we were introduced to the local custom of toasting and drinking Happy Water.

Happy Water appeared with the drink made from corn, (in other parts of Vietnam it can be made from rice) and upon tasting it you know immediately that this is not going to end well. Mr Happy was a very enthusiastic distributor of Happy Water and very keen on the toasting game that each group was doing, even though there were only 3 of us, we got roped into the game too.

At this point, Mr Happy developed an even happier personality, very akin to Mr Chow from the Hangover films. Before we knew it, we were standing on tables and doing lots of toasting. One of the groups had an American sport teacher who was very used to this chanting idea and adopted Wooksie and taught her how to lead entire room in chorus.

When dinner was over, Mr Happy took us on a tour of a surprisingly lively little down that had been taken over my groups of people on bike trips. We ended up in the main square in some sort of community dancing game that made as much sense as the toasting game, but it was a lot of fun.

Mr Happy was on a roll now, we were oblivious to the time and next stop was a karaoke bar, where everyone from dinner had gathered. The Vietnamese bike riders were enthusiastically tucking away the Happy Water and every other Karaoke song was in Vietnamese and they joined in with gusto, then we would have a Western song, where we all joined in with gusto and the night rolled on into the early hours.

Mr Happy assured us that nobody gets a hangover from Happy Water, which I found hard to believe, so we drank beer as he sourced more Happy Water and headed off to join his local pals. Eventually we headed back to the hotel and agreed a 7am start wasn’t necessary and we would see him at 9.30am, which was definitely a good plan.

To be honest, Happy Water did leave us with clear heads in the morning, the only problem was we hadn’t gone to bed till the early hours.

Next morning, the sun was out, the weather warmed up, we connected our phone to the Bluetooth in the car and we headed off on day 2 of the Ha Gaing Loop.

Here is the full story of our big night out

04/07/2026
Ha Gaing Loop – is it safe?

When I was doing my initial research into our Vietnam adventure I very quickly came across the Ha Gaing Loop. A 3 day tour of the northern mountains that border China, mostly done on the back of a motorbike.

All round it was a great trip, and I hope this blog helps you make the right choice.

As a guy who used to own a motorbike in his younger days and also suffered on the back of mate’s motorbikes on long trips through Europe that still have a PTSD effect on me. I paid particular attention to what I would be letting myself in for, as the vast majority of people doing the bike tour are young backpackers.

As 66 year old, we all have back problems. I also had the issue of my wife Wooksie, who has never been on a motorbike in her life, I could see lots of potential of unhappy and whinging wife syndrome.

As you will see from my other blogs, I am quite happy flying down mountainsides on downhill mountain bikes or snowboards, so it I’m quite happy with danger and excitement, but there was something about this whole thing that was troubling me.

What I didn’t like was putting my life in someone else’s hands, so I considered driving the bike myself, but that would mean I would not be able to enjoy the scenery. Not knowing the route, I would have to concentrate that much more, but it would be fun driving a bike again.

All the images are of young people having a great time on the backs of little motorbikes, instead of seeing lots of fun I am seeing gravel burns if they come off. I asked a couple of friends about it and in both cases their offsprings had come off their bikes and ended up in bandages, all part of the fun apparently.

Finally, in the weeks leading up to departure and English girl was killed in a crash, which had my alarm bells clanging loudly, there was no data on accidents on the loop or evidence it was safe or not. That voice in my head was whispering “what’s the worst that can happen?”, my answer was an angry wife.

I hunted around and found alternatives to the bikes in the form of jeeps, it was more expensive for sure, and probably not as much fun. I went through a decision process that might help you if you are considering the same conundrum that I was, these were the things I considered.

As you will discover, we decided to take the Jeep Tour via Tripadvisor and it was excellent.

This is how we came to the decision and also what our experiences were on the trip.

Safety

Having now done the Loop, the bike companies do seem to take care of their customers. They make plenty of safety equipment like helmets, gloves, elbow and knee pads available, and that covers the big risk that I could see, a skid on the gravel roads taking my skin off.

The young people know lots more than us oldies and rarely used the gear, but it’s there if you want it, helmets are compulsory.

The drivers are a mix bag, some of them have been doing it for years but there are the younger generations in each group that are less experienced. We saw trips with 15 – 30 bikes, they try to ride together in a line and some of the overtaking to keep together looked pretty hairy from where I was sitting.

The drivers are a very friendly and sociable bunch and hang out in the Karaoke bars with the customers enjoying the happy water too!

My son, Sam, did the 4 day trip on a motorbike and had no issues, but the death of the English girl does seem to have resulted in a clampdown on safety by the companies before the government gets involved. There are different companies doing the route and Sam did research into which were the safest, he went with Bong.

Comfort

Whichever way you look at it, there is nothing comfortable about sitting on a small motorbike for 4 or 5 hours a day, you will end up with a sore arse and a stiff back, whatever age you are.

We spoke to a couple of 30 somethings who did the bike trip, and they found the 3 day option tough going. We also saw one or two 50 somethings getting down with the kids and doing it on the back of bikes and they were alive, just, and walking like they had a broom handle for a back.

Jeeps also come in many shapes, sizes and vintages, so when our driver turned up in a very tidy Toyota, with aircon and a good stereo, we knew we were in for a few days of comfort.

It is also worth bearing in mind that it rains a lot in this area, so if you are on a bike, you are going to get wet,

So, the Jeep tour wins hands down, but maybe not quite as adventurous as being on the back of the bike.

Experience

This was the one area that I thought might not be so good in the Jeep, as we would not be out in the open air but I was completely wrong on this one.

One of the potential downsides was being isolated from the fun in our Jeep, but every night we were in the same bars as the bikers so this wasn’t an issue and we did have the company of Happy to keep us cheerful.

OK, maybe we couldn’t go up some of the goat tracks or take off road short cuts but we still saw all the amazing views.

Admittedly we had a great driver, who chatted away all day telling us about the local history and culture. We would not have got any of that if we were on a bike. He was called Happy for a reason we discovered.

We stopped at the same cafes as the bikes, saw the same views, and we could watch the landscape go past at a nice gentle speed in our comfy seats. We didn’t have to travel at the pace of the group and set out own schedule to get back for the bus to Hanoi.

Cost

The Jeep tour is more expensive, at the end of the day you are getting a private, English speaking, driver who takes you around for 3 days, and we also had better accommodation on the first night, a nice hotel rather than a hostel room,

The trip cost us £200 each, whereas the bike tour would have been about £110, so about twice the price.

25/06/2026