The 1st Vietnamese words I learned were “dog meat”, to ensure I did not accidentally eat just that. Now I do not think I have eaten dog meat, but the amount of mystery meat I have eaten is ridiculous, and every time it has been delicious….so if I did unknowingly eat dog meat, it therefore must be delicious.

“Thit cho” or literally meat dog, is a popular dish in many parts of Vietnam. I have seen the signs advertising this delicacy since my 1st few days in the South once outside Saigon, but it is much more prevalent in the North. It seems the smaller, more remote villages serve it in half of the establishments, and my problem is many establishments do not have signs advertising what they are cooking. The smaller joints often have 1 or two dishes being made, so you kind of have to take what they have, you do not have a choice. It becomes a “point at a meat and hope for the best” kind of deal, and is such a common game for me I stopped asking what they were since I never understood them anyway. But I swear, every time I didn’t know what I was eating the meat was F’ing delicious, so I stopped caring.

Cam Thuy to Hanoi: 125 KM
Hanoi to Thai Nguyen: 67 KM
Thai Nguyen to Bac Kan: 83 KM
Bac Kan to Ban Gioc: 197 KM
Ban Gioc to Beo Lac: 197 KM
Beo Lac to Meo Vac: 86 KM
Meo Vac to Ha Giang: 182 KM
Ha Giang to Sapa: 244 KM
Sapa to Nghia Lo: 231 KM
Nghia Lo to Mai Chau: 229 KM
Mai Chau to Na Meo: 122 KM
Total for Completed Vietnam:
3,841 KM (2,386 Miles!)

Yes I am now in the North, and as I previously alluded to people here are still friendly but more reserved as the North is made up of many different ethnic minority hillside tribes, so it is back to the staring routine for the most part. I suppose this is how Mick Jagger feels as my glory days seem to now be behind me. I am not washed up though, at some point I go through a random village and 2 kids hold out there hands as I pass on the bike, yelling hello. I reach out and give them high fives without slowing down, I told you it’s the rock star life out here.

I originally went to Cam Thuy so that I could go play in Vietnamcoracles “Limestone Loop”, a series of roads taking one around the mountainous limestone Karst region of the North West. Once I got there, I took a look at my remaining days on the visa, and reconsidered as time was getting tight. I realized I could be in Hanoi in a day, so headed there instead in order to head to the famous “Ha Giang” loop, continuing around to Sapa, and then cutting South back to the Limestone loop depending on how many days I had left, but ensuring I had enough time to see what I came for, the real North.

Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital and second largest city is a hectic one, but after Saigon Hanoi seems a bit tame. The traffic getting in was fairly easy thanks to the slow pace everyone drives, but it is still a bit of a free for all. I had no problem getting around, but did witness a scooter crash into a couple crossing the street, of course that scooter was driven not just by foreigners, but two women foreigners….need I say more. It looked like everyone was fine since it was a low speed crash so I did the Asian thing and pretended I saw nothing, and continued on.

I was only staying the 1 night due to timing, so I grabbed a hostel and walked around the area a bit, hit up a burger joint as I knew the food would be going downhill as I headed north, then I grabbed a waffle served with ice cream which surprisingly was a disappointment. From there I did some bar hopping starting on the famous “Beer corner”, famous for cheap local beers which of course they were out of, so I was forced to buy slightly more expensive cheap beers. Eventually I ended up at another club, were I was forced to buy 5 dollar Budweisers….wtf you must be kidding me? Needless to say Hanoi was fine, but nothing special after traveling the length of Vietnam. I could have used a few more days to get a feel for the city, but also don’t feel like I missed out on much. From Hanoi most go on a tour of the famous “Halong Bay”, which I also decided to skip. Everyone told me it was great, I do not doubt this, but again due to timing I figured this was more of a couples thing anyway, so jumped on the bike and pointed it North.

I decided to go up to the edge of the border with China, to check out the Ban Gioc Waterfall. I was not sure how long it would take to get there, so was roughly shooting for Cao Bang for a stop over. Headed North out of Hanoi a few hours outside the city up until Thai Ngyun is awful, the road is fine, and traffic moves but is busy, and it is nonstop commercial store after commercial store. There is no distinction from 1 town to the next, it just feels like 1 long city.

My bike feels loose, I have taken a look at the front end multiple times since it started a bit after the guy in Hoi An replaced the front shocks for me, but everything seems fine up there. I stop at a random mechanic and ask him to tighten my chain since that was overdue anyway, and he shows me it is the rear bearings causing the rear wheel to wobble. Remember the kind old man in Hue who tried to warn me, yeah thanks guy at the hostel for blowing it off as a scam. He takes off the rear wheel and the bearings pretty much disintegrate before our eyes. Now I am glad I stopped, he replaces them for 10 bucks and adjusts the chain since the wheel was off now the bike is back to normal. I feel great now so stop for some delicious Pho and a coke, and am only charged 1.08 USD which is the lowest I have paid yet considering a coke alone usually costs me 65 cents. Things are going well now.

I continue on another hour or so before my chain jumps off the sprocket. God damn, that idiot didn’t adjust the wheel properly. This caused the chain to kink a bit, but I am able to put it back on the sprocket by hand and rotating the chain fixes the kink….but when it jumped it damaged the adjustment pieces on the bike, something I will need to replace later. I limp on until I find another mechanic who bends the piece back to normal and makes a quick adjust to the chain for me, then he sees the axle nut is loose. That idiot mechanic didn’t tighten it properly, which is what caused the chain problems. The good mechanic charges me nothing and sends me on my way. Another hour or so of taking it easy as I am now outside the city, and the chain jumps again….son of a bitch. I was passing a little girl on a bicycle when it broke, so I coast down the hill so as not to break down right in front of her looking like a jackass foreigner on a crappy Chinese bike. I come to a stop and jump off ready to put it back on the sprocket only to see it didn’t just jump the sprocket, this time it broke right off. Not only that but it broke off up at the top of the hill where I passed the girl…of course it did. So not only is it physically impossible for me to go anywhere, I have to walk up the F’ing hill to retrieve the chain.

With chain in hand I see a small village where I had broke down. I can tell just by looking that they won’t have a mechanic, so need to decide if I should push the bike forward to where I have not yet been, or turn back and head for Thai Nguyen which was the last city I passed, and hope I will find a mechanic prior to the actual city as it is 17 KM back. Just then I hear a scooter coming from the small village. I motion to him to stop so I can show him the broken chain and play charades to confirm that they do not have a mechanic in his village. I indicate forward, and then back, to which he tells me go back…I can only hope that he doesn’t mean all the way to Thai Nguyen. At least I know which direction to head now. Luckily the weather is great, the sky is blue, and I am in a hilly rather than mountainous area, so tell myself it could be worse. I push to the edge of the hills and jump on, coasting down the hills with a big smile on my face enjoying the peacefulness as it is crazy quite here, then the fun ends and I am forced to push up the next hill, luckily I am getting good at these walks of shame. People must have thought I was an idiot as I cruised by with a broken bike smiling, but I didn’t care.

I see a sign for various towns and am forced to make another decision, I can continue straight to Thai Nguyen which is the sure thing, or I can take a left/right which may or may not find me a mechanic, and may extend my walk if I need to turn around defeated and continue on to Thai Nguyen. Luckily I get to the actual intersection, and there is a restaurant so I can play some more charades. The old guys tell me to go right, the young guys tell me to go left, son of a bitch nothing is easy. I decide the young guys may have a lot less to hold a grudge on foreigners for in this country, so go left even though it says 10 KM. As I am pushing towards Thi Tran Du an old guy on a scooter stops, and points holding up 3 fingers. I assume this is 3KMs, so thank him and continue on. A few minutes later he returns, forcibly telling me no no no, turn around idiot, oh ok I guess I missed it. Turns out he must have meant 3 houses, as I passed a shop that had no one around, and looked more like a store than a shop.

I find the mechanic with his wife and kids, and get him to replace my chain. Over the next few minutes the empty shop fills up with about 15 people, as word has spread the foreigner is here. I guess not much happens in this small place. Half of the crowd leaves once the story of me missing the shop is told 3 or 4 times and they see I am now fine.  I get some tea and there is the usual small talk/charades.

Eventually a really old guy walks slowly across the street, he says some things to me and gives me a very respectable handshake. I am pretty sure he put on his best shirt when he heard I was here. The aunt/friend asks if she can get a pic of me with the kid, but turns out the kid was racist and he started screaming the second he is put on my lap. All in all it was a great time and I am pretty sure I was the 1st foreigner they have ever had. Slightly defeated after several mishaps in 1 day, and thinking about how the North is known for it’s cold wet weather, I decide heading North may not be the best plan with the expiring visa so backtrack to Thai Ngyuen for the night scratching plans for Cao Bang/Ban Gioc Waterfall and instead will return to Hanoi.

Well this is a fucking adventure blog, so after a good nights rest I say to hell with canceling my plans and start back for Cao Bang, I won’t be defeated that easily bitches. It’s a cold wet day, and I hate retracing my steps, but as I pass my breakdown spot I feel rejuvenated as it’s all new territory from here. The drive is nice enough, I pass through villages and rice fields, the scenery is now getting better. Later I pass through some random small town, and start climbing up a mountain. Suddenly out of nowhere, the crappy Chinese bike has no power, it slows to a stop and refuses to go up the mountain. I pull over, take a look at the obvious things, and honestly don’t know what I should do. After a few minutes I start it up and it starts climbing again, but the temporary failure has me worried so I do a 360 and head into town. I pass a mechanic shop so stop to turn around, this time on level ground. I give it gas and this time the bike refuses to move, not even an inch. I look back and see some smoke coming from the rear wheel, great idiot mechanic with the bearings strikes again. I literally have to push it across the street up to the shop with the rear wheel sliding as it is locked up, so much for trying to not look desperate. They insist on replacing the hub for reasons I do not fully know, while replacing the bearings and getting me on my way. The do not charge me an insane amount so I am just relived to get out of there.

I then head over the mountain, but with the previous incidents from the last 2 days my mind starts playing games on me and I am not convinced all problems have been resolved. I feel like it is missing power, so decide I can’t get stuck up North and turn around to return to Thai Ngyuen rather than getting deeper in the mountains. Once over the mountain everything feels ok again now that I am on level ground so I rethink everything and decide to stop in Bac Kan, the nearest city back, to reevaluate as Thai Ngyuen is larger but had nothing going on so figure there is no reason for me to spend another night all the way back there.

Well no surprise but Bac Kan doesn’t have anything going on either, even for a decent sized city. I grab a hotel, take a look at the remaining days for my visa and a map to gauge how much time I need to get through the North. I decide to push onto Ban Gioc, I will see this damn waterfall if it kills me, if I have to ditch the bike I can always get a bus back to Hanoi and jump on a plane. I wake up the next morning and drive from Bac Kan to Ban Gioc through some rain, but this time without any additional issues.

The drive out to Ban Gioc was decent, there is an alternate longer way that looks fantastic, but takes about 5 hours so I took the easy quicker way. Even the easy way was good, it is a nice road with gentle curves that let you go at a good pace, driving along some good scenery and more remote villages. The road takes you up to the Chinese border where the falls are. At certain times of year it looks amazing, but I knew going in that wouldn’t be the case now. It is rain season, and was foggy and grey, but the benefit is the water is flowing. After I hit up the falls I grab a home stay in the area as it is late afternoon, and I am wet.

The home stay was interesting, but I am generally not a fan. You stay over in someones house, often sleeping on a mattress on the floor, getting a glimpse into their life which I am fine with. The problem with this is they often speak little if any English, so it can get awkward. Luckily this one had 5 other travelers, so it was a great time, but I try and avoid these places as I worry it will be just myself and a family I cannot communicate with, fun for 20 minutes or so, then just weird. They cook us up a fantastic meal of local foods, and we share stories, rice wine, and some beers for the rest of the night.

The next morning I head out passing through Cao Bang and continue to Beo Lac, that’s right the Ha Giang loop is back on. The bike is back to normal, and the others at the home stay came from the North so I was given some great tips on where to go and told what I would miss if I turned back. It is a long day of riding, it is slow going due to conditions and curves, but the road takes me through some amazing places, this is some of Vietnams best. From here on out the riding is pretty phenomenal, the North is amazing. Beo Lac has a market as most of these places do, but all the restaurants are dead. I decide to hit up a restaurant anyway as I see nothing in the market and don’t trust the street food I see. The guy shows me my choices, I point to Rice, Greens, and Nem, telling him no thanks to the meat options as the town had a good amount of signs advertising dogs. Unfortunately the food sucked, the rice and greens were ok but the nem was cold and had been sitting. I have had amazing nem, this wasn’t one of those times.

The riding continues to amaze me as I travel on wards. Today I am aiming for Dong Van as it is only 22 KM farther than Meo Vac, but up here everything takes longer so not sure how things will play out. I make good time to Meo Vac and arrive by noon, but just as I get there it starts to rain. I decide to grab a hostel since the ride between here and Dong Van is the legendary Ma Pi Leng Pass, rated as Vietnam’s number 1 pass. I figure I will wait a day for better weather, as I am now ahead of schedule. There is some conflicting info online about the Ha Giang province permit and if it is needed, so I ask at the guesthouse and they say I do not need it. Since I have all afternoon I walk over to the police station and purchase it anyway, since it takes 5 minutes and is only 10USD. Worst case scenario I have a 10 dollar souvenir.

The weather improves by next day, and the pass lives up to it’s hype at almost 5,000 feet above sea level. As soon as you leave Meo Vac you start climbing the mountain, turn a few corners and are presented with the classic view with the river deep below. The road twists and turns along the mountain while passing through some more remote villages. I hit it on a Saturday so it feels very touristy as unlike my other rides, I am no longer the only one out stopping to take pictures. There are tons of bikers, word is out that this is the place to ride. I take lots of pics, the fact that we are all being tourists doesn’t ruin the ride, but the pass is over quickly due to only being 22 KMs. Continuing on the ride is still amazing, and I spend the rest of the day twisting my way through mountains as I continue onto Ha Giang.

Everywhere in the North is pretty dead. The riding is fantastic, but there is not much going on, and very few foreigners this time of year. Ha Giang is a large town, but the hostel I am in is empty, I am literally the only 1 there. I don’t mind though, the days ride here was amazing, and ended with another pass I didn’t even know I was going to go through. This one was all downhill, without too many switchbacks, which meant I could keep the speed up. I stopped to take a pic of the road and saw two foreigners rip by, so followed them at a distance which let me gauge the speed I could make turns and rip down that mountain following them. That was a great ending to a fantastic day. Since I did not stay in any hotels between Meo Vac and here, I was never asked about the permit, but I think had I stayed in some of the smaller towns I would possibly have needed it, so it ends up being a 10 dollar souvenir.

From Ha Giang it was onto Sapa, and everyone knows Sapa sucks. Well, everyone but Vietnam, they have ruined it. But before I could make it to Sapa, a few hours outside Ha Giang I got a flat and had to do yet another walk of shame. Luckily this one happened only about a 1/4 mile from a shop, so I got the new tube replaced in no time and continued onto Sapa. I have been constantly warned I should stay outside Sapa in the surrounding area. The entire town is under construction, once they realized that tourists liked the tranquil town, the went into expansion overdrive with hotels, restaurants, and bars. It’s lit up like Vegas, full of tourists, and yet there is no party/social scene…at least this time of year. The reason people go here was the tranquility which is long gone, along with the walking tours led by the local Hmong women who lead you to their local village to give you a taste of their life. That is fine and dandy, but I have driven through enough remote villages at this point to where walking in the cold rain doesn’t sound appealing, as Sapa is so high up in the mountains that it is usually foggy, cold, and wet. I am only here for the nearby riding and the western food, but due to the food decide to stay right in town despite the warnings. I had thought about the burgers I would be eating for days, man was I disappointing as even the food sucks here. What a let down, Sapa is a bust.

From Sapa I head South making my way back towards the limestone loop. I make a last minute change of course due to some tips by the San Fransisco couple at the Ban Gioc home stay, and cut in through Mu Cang Chai. This takes me on another fantastic road, and through a beautiful area full of rice terraces. Sadly, this is another area that is being ruined, and there is an enormous resort being built right on top of one of the most picturesque locations in this area, it is horrendous but I still enjoy the trip. I push onto Nghia Lo to make more ground, but this is a long day and probably could have stopped in Mu Cang Chai as there were some home stays in the area.

The highlight of Nghia Lo is just some mystery meat pho, but it is delicious. A random dude joined my table so I showed him a map of my awesome adventure. He spoke a lot of Vietnamese hoping I may suddenly pick it up, and of course there was some awkward silence. But as I go to leave, he tells me he is buying my meal, suddenly Nghia Lo isn’t so bad. I leave tentatively thinking I may have misunderstood, but the lady in charge indicates they have already discussed it. Sweet, this is my 3rd or 4th free meal, rock star!

Nghia Lo to Mai Chau, and Mai Chau to the border of Na Meo are all kind of a blur. Mai Chau sets you up for the limestone loop, which I cut through a portion of. The town itself was nothing special, but for some reason, possibly its proximity to both Hanoi and the limestone loop, there is a larger tourist presence than I expected. Some signs are in English, and some of the hotels are stupid expensive compared to other areas of Vietnam. I found a guesthouse right on the strip for the normal rate of 10USD, but a majority were listed online at 50+, I have no idea why I feel like I must be missing something here, but it doesn’t seem to special to me. The loop itself is great but doesn’t compare to the last few days of riding. even had 2 spare days in case something went wrong which I could have used to ride more of the loop, but decide I have had enough and head for the border, where the ridding gets better.

I think I took the back way into Na Meo as the road was small, rough, and awesome. Villagers seemed surprised to see me back there, I kept telling myself there must be another way in as there is only scooter traffic, no 4 wheeled vehicles at all. The scenery was once again amazing, I keep thinking about how this is a great way to finish off Vietnam. Of course I get to the end of my route and pull up to a nice newly paved road just outside Na Meo, yup…I definitely took the back way in, I love unplanned adventures.

Na Meo is very small, but has both a hotel and a smaller guesthouse. The hotel is pretty crappy, but I stayed there anyway in order to cross the border into Laos early the next morning. There is also a gas station there now so you can fill up before crossing, which seems to be newish based on previous comments I have read about gas.

Laos has never been all that high on my list of destinations, I know next to nothing about the country, or what I am in for…but they will let me take the crappy Chinese bike across the border, so I am in for yet another unplanned adventure.