Day 6 - Dongvan to Ha Giang

We stayed at a nice hotel last night, and enjoyed a great meal just next door.  One of the cute girls who worked there, had really, REALLY taken a shine to Del's Super happy lucky moto wish pig. So he ended up giving her the pig in the morning.  Did I mention she was really cute?

The town had a great view sitting just behind it..

We kicked off the day admiring the dodgy wiring in the street outside the hotel.  The numerous (live) cables ran straight past the first floor balcony, actually touching it, so if you were in that room you could pretty much walk outside and grab hold of live cabling!  Now I'm no electrician so I don't know  whether that would do you any harm or not, but it was definitely amusing.

While we were looking at that, Pinky pointed out a large green insect on the wall under the hotel sign. It was about 5" long and had chosen a really bad location for its camouflage.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I really struggled with my Nexus 7 during the trip, it let me down pretty badly if I'm honest. If I'd spent less time waiting for it to do anything I'd have been able to be more on top of the trip blog and posting photos.  Well last night I decided just to factory reset the damn thing and it worked a treat. However it was a bit too little too late.

Last night I realised the G-Shock I'd brought with me on this trip had an altimeter function, which actually turned out to be quite useful in Vietnam when we're going over mountains regularly.  Well it turns out that the hotel where we were staying, being so close to the Ma Pi Leng pass we rode over yesterday, was still at a heady 3700ft.

When we'd loaded up the bikes and got underway, we set off down quite a dusty gravelly main route out of town and within just a couple of miles we were at a very respectable 5100ft.

I hung back with Bryan to take some photos, the others were enjoying the road a bit too much I think!    We then dropped back down to a much larger road through a small village before finding ourselves on some more incredible twisties.  We stopped for a while to take some photos and cool off a bit.

Tell me you wouldn't want to ride that!!

L-R: Jim, me, Pinky

Normally we'd fire up the bikes and ride off.  We were set to continue down the road you see in the photos above, but instead Pinky just rolled away without the motor so we got the hint and ended up having a bit of a coaster ride down the mountain. It was great fun, it's surprising how quickly you gather speed on a road like this, and also how much control you give up in the form of engine braking too.  It really forces you do concentrate on your speed much more than usual.

After winding our way around a valley we then turned onto what would be the highlight of the day - a 14km off-road section around a mountain.  To begin with it wasn't too much different from some of the worse sections you'll find on regular roads in Vietnam, but then it got a bit more rutted and muddy in places.

Some great views along the way

I'm not a fan of mud, or getting wet either.  So when I saw a boggy rut that was about to get me covered in the stuff I tried to change ruts, with the inevitable drop. Oh well, it was the first 'off' for a Nambuster and since I've got more practice at that sort of thing than the others I'd rather it be me!

Just before this I'd wanted to take my jacket off and stick it under the bungee net.  It was getting seriously hot, and off road work is knackering.

Underneath the bike is a monster rut, filled with mud. Honest.

As is often the case, once you balls up once you tend to balls up again not long after. I think I was overheating a bit at this point and concentration was going.  As I rounded a rocky uphill right hander I tried to climb up this rock step only for the engine to either bog or run out of grunt.  Well, it stalled, and the bike started to roll backwards even with the front brake on (it was that rocky and steep it was just dragging the wheel) and over I went a second time. What a numpty. I've got plenty of off road experience so I'm putting these little incidents down to being hot and bothered!

We carried on around upwards then there was a sharp left as the trail opened up onto the other side of the mountain, overlooking a valley with more mountains in the distance.  The trail varied between just dried out mud and hard packed dirt, with other sections having lots of rocks embedded in them.  As the trail wound its way down the valley there were sharp drop-offs on the right, going down hundreds of feet.  The trail often forked two or three ways and you had the choice between a rocky trail away from the edge, or an easier one right by the edge of the drop.  Concentration was needed here!

Short video below, riding close to the edge around 18 seconds in.

After getting over this first pass it descended past some stilt houses here and there.  The situation of these houses was fascinating, they were located several km along a very tricky off road trail, nestling in the lowland between one mountain and another.  About as remote as it gets.  Here we were in the back end of the middle of nowhere and yet kids were running out of their houses to shout "hello!" as we rode past, I don't think we got a more friendly reaction on our whole trip!  That took us by surprise since in the more remote and rural areas people tend to be more curious than anything else.

After the second pass, which was less severe than the first, we wound our way down alongside some villages which were edging onto a large river.

After crossing the (very well constructed) bridge in the photo we hit wide open fast tarmac for a good 10-15km, then stopped for lunch in a small town.  Leaving the town an hour later we climbed up a lovely twisty narrow road to what was a small visitors centre at Quan Ba.

Quan Ba's main claim to fame is that from the top of the hill, accessed by about 150 steps (hard work in bike gear and hot weather!) you can see the twin hills.  The hills resemble a pair of lady bumps.

Probably the biggest pair of hooters you'll ever see

Had to be done, didn't it?

I also took the opportunity to try out the tilt-shift function on my camera, which plays with the focus to give objects a miniature appearance

An hour or so later down the twisty road in the last photo, we stopped for a cool off.  They had an ancient pool table so a game of pool ensued.  While that was happening, one of the local kids seemed to have taken a shine to Jim's sex chicken which had been mounted on the Poulet Express for the last week.  Jim did the honourable thing and gave the kid the chicken!

What with all the off road that we'd done today we were pretty wiped out, so it was a pleasant surprise when we rolled up to our accommodation for the night; a little forest lodge type place out in the hills.

We concluded the day with a great meal enjoyed out in the open, and a fair bit of beer and wine.  This was the last 'proper' day of riding, tomorrow we would be riding to Lao Cai to get the bikes and ourselves on the train back to Hanoi.