I recently returned from a great trip to the northern vietnam, which you may have seen glimpses of if you follow me on social media. This was our second trip to Vietnam after the one we made between Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and up to Hanoi, to see in particular the famous Halong Bay.
This time we wanted to focus mainly on the north of the country, more precisely the mountains in a loop to the northeast, with the exception of our excursion to Tam Coco, which we didn't want to miss.
If I had to summarize simply, I would hesitate between " My God, it's beautiful " or "we my buttocks will not remember"... Yes, not very classy but when I got to the end, I felt each kilometer go by under my painful butt, because yes, 1300 km on a motorbike is tiring! But it was worth it!!
Our itinerary in the north of Vietnam
To summarize the trip, I'll outline our route: a loop starting from Hanoi, entirely by motorbike from Lao Cai back to Hanoi (so I'm leaving out the visits we made before getting on our motorbikes, namely the inland Halong Bay). Tam Coco:
- Night train to Lao Cai, with motorbike (sleeper train)
- Visit Sapa and surroundings, meeting the Hmongs (night in Sapa)
- Sapa ➔ Bac Ha market (night in Bac Ha)
- Route Bac Ha ➔ Vinh Quang (night in Vinh Quang)
- Vinh Quang ➔ Ha Giang (overnight in Ha Giang) — necessary to obtain a driving license to go further, towards Dong Van and Meo Vac
- Ha Giang ➔ Dong Van (night in Dong Van)
- Dong Van ➔ Meo Vac ➔ Bao Lac (night in Bao Lac)
- Bao Lake ➔ Cao Bang (night in Cao Bang)
- Visit to Ban Gioc waterfall (night in Cao Bang)
- Cao bang ➔ Bac Son viewpoint (night in Bac Son)
- Bac Son ➔ Thai Nguyen tea plantation (night in Thai Nguyen)
- Path return to Hanoi
For a complete breakdown of each step, Discover our itinerary dedicated to Northern Vietnam.
In total, it's a little over 1 km traveled through the mountains, on a simple little 300 cc, two on top with luggage. Not the most comfortable option clearly, even Jitima can't drive two wheels, and as for me, I've never driven a bigger engine, so no choice...
Budget for 2 weeks in North Vietnam
We spent exactly 13 days there:
On-site budget: 21 ฿ (117 €) or 566 ฿ (1€) / day for 655, quite reasonable for a great trip, even better, we have and this is a first, not only not exceeded, but spent less than expected by having a surplus at the end of the trip!
Well, of course, that's not all, you have to add the hotel reservations made in advance (+ 3 ฿) and the motorbike rental for 565 days as well as the night train to Lao Cai, also booked in advance via an agency (with a deposit of 12% of the total amount): Flamingo Travel, which I recommend, very good contact and efficient (motorcycle = $12/day and the train $33 per person, in total 8 ฿).
Also to be added are the souvenirs, a certain part being included in the figure above, but most of them, bought in Hanoi on the last day, represent a substantial sum which would not be relevant in this article (since not everyone will be as spendthrift in terms of souvenirs, especially since here, Jitima bought a lot of fabrics to make bags etc., only a few trinkets are taken into account in the calculation):
Total Budget: 32 ฿ (767 €) or a little more than 862 € per day per person.
As you can see, the biggest budget, by far, is transportation, with an average of 933 ฿ (24.5 €) / day. Knowing that in addition to renting the motorbike, it was obviously necessary to fill the beast, on average, 2 full tanks per day (75 dong, or about 000 baht).
I had been forward-thinking and we did the whole trip with a spare bottle of petrol that we attached to the side. It turned out to be useless, because in the end, you can find petrol everywhere, so I used the bottle at the end of the trip.
We had slept in hotels that were sometimes simple at just $10 a night, the average being $16 a night, but with standards that were pretty good for this price range! The most expensive was $26 in Hanoi, which is still reasonable.
Apart from a few souvenirs in Hanoi, we paid everything in Dong, the local currency. We changed our bahts and dollars (we had both just in case) as we went, it's possible in most hotels, and otherwise there were banks in every town we stopped in.
Some pointers:
- A 1L bottle of water costs on average: 15 Dong (000 €)
- A meal costs on average: 35 Dong per person (€000)
- Motorbike rental: $10-12 per day + a full tank of petrol at 40 Dong (€000 per day)
- For taxi journeys, it obviously depends on the distance, in Hanoi some have meters, on average expect between 50 and 000 Dong (€100 to €000)
- Average price for tours: 50 Dong (€000)
Getting around in northern Vietnam: complicated on your own!
Some connections are possible by bus but will not be direct, for example to connect Bac Ha to Ha Giang, no less than 3 different buses will be needed...
For me, it was obvious that we had to do this trip on a motorbike, independently. It's the assurance of being able to visit at our own pace, stopping wherever we want. Well, especially wherever I want, because starting with a motorbike, only I can drive.
So I have swallowed the 1300 km of roads that made up our route. Roads that are not always in good condition, with a lot of work in progress. The advantage is that there is little traffic, really very little.
The worst thing is all the animals and people you can come across along the roads who suddenly start crossing without looking. For example, we suddenly saw a horse almost in the middle of the road when we turned a corner. The most striking example is this famous little hen who, as I was starting off again (so I wasn't going fast) decided to cross at that moment and made me lose my balance with the weight, the fall made me land heavily on my elbow... The result being that I finished the last two days with a broken elbow and a cracked rib...
Afterwards, there are of course from time to time 2 trucks which will cross (and there be careful to move well) but overall, the course was done without too many scares.
Summary of the stay
The welcome: Much better than elsewhere in the country!
A quick summary of the welcome. If during our previous stay in Vietnam, we had a bit of mixed feelings about the personality of the Vietnamese, with a tendency to be a bit grumpy, sometimes complaining (even if we did have some nice encounters, mostly in the south of the country).
Here in the north, except for Hanoi, the general reception was not very good, smiles, friendly people, ready to help us despite the language barrier (almost no one spoke English).
And speaking of language, it is one of the weak points of this region. Apart from Sapa, which is very touristy so it is easier to come across someone with some knowledge of English, throughout the rest of our stay, we only found 2 or 3 people who spoke bits of English (including the policeman who will give us our driving license for visit the region in Dong Van). This was also the case in hotels, relatively few foreigners wander off independently in these isolated areas, so English could not be relied upon to communicate….
It's sometimes frustrating when looking for information...
Northern Vietnamese cuisine (a disappointment…)
I might not make any friends as Vietnamese cuisine is generally appreciated, yes but here it is, in the north of Vietnam, we found ourselves with very little choice, limited to Pho (noodles) or some kind of slightly oily fried rice and it's not very tasty...
And needless to say, after a week, we were starting to get seriously bored, especially since Jitima doesn't eat meat, even though she eats fish and shellfish, which wasn't exactly what we found around here…
Well, I must also say that, already living daily in Asia and being particularly used to the excellent, flavorful Thai cuisine, encountering this kind of dish in Vietnam really... left me hungry (even the bread wasn't good...).
North Vietnam in Photos
A small photo gallery to illustrate all this and make your mouth water 😉
4 Comments
Great blog. We are going to the north next August and these articles make me dream and are very interesting. For a 2 day trek, would you prefer bac ha or sapa?
Thank you! Honestly, it's hard to decide, both are beautiful places, one (Sapa) is used to trekking so it's easier to organize but it's more touristy, the other is not particularly structured for trekking since people are generally just passing through to see the market, but at least it's quieter.
Hello Romain.
Just a word to thank you for sharing….
I'm a big fan of Asia; I lived in Kanchanaburi for a while, traveled around Cambodia, spent time in the Mekong Delta, and I'm planning a short trip to Northern Vietnam by motorbike (at least part of it!). Your advice and experiences will be invaluable to me…
A big thank you……..
Christelle.
Hello Christelle,
Just a simple word in return, thank you! This is the kind of message that really makes you want to continue sharing!