Our rather awkward wedding debutĪs we entered the town of Cao Bang, our base for the next couple of days we were greeted with a rather large “Welcome to Cao Bang” sign. Obviously not too many foreigners in these parts. A wedding was going on nearby and all of a sudden we turned into rather awkward guests of honour. In the towns and cities of Vietnam, it’s not uncommon to see whole families crammed onto scooters, however out here family members were replaced by a wide variety of barnyard creatures.Įn route, we stopped and asked for directions at a local shop. By now the roads were quiet, especially on the dirt roads. With limestone karsts jutting up from the earth, rice paddies glistening in the sunshine and clear blue skies this was a wonderful ride, exactly as we imagined it should have been when we left Hanoi. It was on this journey that the scenery jumped into the spectacular. A street in Langson Day 2: Lang Son to Cao Bang The town has a couple of great viewpoints over the surrounding scenery. With colourful houses and surrounding hills, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Central or South America. Finding a guesthouse in Lang Son was easy enough, although they were very surprised to see two pasty white guys climbing off of the motorbikes. As we pulled away from Vietnam’s crowded capital the roads seemed to empty as the hills rolled past us. The journey up was easy once we got out of Hanoi. We headed northeast out of Hanoi towards the pretty little town of Lang Son. If you’ve never ridden these, find a quiet street to practice on before heading out into the big wide world as we did. For this trip, we upgraded to the big-boy world of semi-automatics, which meant we now had to start changing gears (gulp). Dan had also ridden a scooter in the past, but calling us “experienced” would have been insulting and very much incorrect. I had ridden a scooter a couple of weeks earlier, down to the Mekong Delta from Ho Chi Minh City. Other motorcyclists on the other hand are generally much better although you still need to be on your guard. Indicators, road markings and the use of mirrors seem to be optional extras here, especially for trucks and buses. The best advice I can give is to give as much space as you can to others and beep that horn on every blind corner. Vietnamese roads require constant attention and occasional spider-man-like reflexes. That being said we did have more than a few incidents that raised the old heart rates, not all of which was to do with the roads. I would never do this sort of trip alone. Fortunately, they were able to give us a photocopy before we left. The fact that the bikes we hired back in 2008 were from a company recommended by our hostel made Dan feel more relaxed about handing over his passport. Looking back on it, it’s probably something I wouldn’t have recommended back in 2008 either, but such is life. Now in 2018, I would not recommend doing this since most bike rental agencies will take a copy of your passport and a deposit. Back in 2008, this was extremely common in Vietnam. Fortunately, Dan was good enough to volunteer. Alas, they need collateral in the form of one of our passports. We stayed at Hanoi Backpackers and they were able to recommend a reliable company to rent two Honda 125s. No smartphones, no google maps, just a regular road map written in Vietnamese, of course. We had a only Vietnamese road map to guide us. Finally, we would then take a few mountain roads west and then head south and visit the Ba Be Lakes National Park. Next, we would press on further north to Cao Bang, a small city situated 100 or so kilometres from the Chinese border (more on that later). Our first destination would be the mountain town of Lang Son. When planning our trip we picked a circular route that started and ended in Hanoi. Back in 2008, we didn’t see another foreign tourist until we returned to Hanoi 1 week later. Even today the northeast of the country is still relatively unexplored in a backpacking sense. We chose this part of the country as almost every tourist we’d met had headed northwest to Sapa. This was where the idea for our North Eastern Vietnam road trip came from. Tourism to Vietnam had only opened up a few years prior, so there were still plenty of undiscovered gems in this beautiful country.Ī week or so earlier a friend and I hired a scooter each and rode from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) down in the Mekong delta for a 3-day road trip. Back in 2008 I and my good friend Dan decided to rent a motorbike each and disappear for a week. Hiring motorbikes in Vietnam is something that is on many travellers’ bucket lists. Motorbiking through North Eastern Vietnam
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