I recently returned from an amazing trip to northern Vietnam , which you may have seen glimpses of if you follow me on social media. It was our second trip to Vietnam after our previous journey between Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) and up to Hanoi, including a visit to the famous Halong Bay.
This time, we wanted to focus mainly on the north of the country, more specifically the mountains in a loop in the northeast, with the exception of our excursion to Tam Coc , which we didn't want to miss.
If I had to sum it up simply, I'd hesitate between " My God, it's beautiful !" or " My backside will never forget it! "... Yes, not very classy, but towards the end, I could feel every kilometer ticking by under my now-sore rear end, because yes, 1300 km on a motorcycle takes its toll! But it was so worth it!!
Our itinerary in the north of Vietnam
To summarize the trip here, I'll outline our route, a loop starting from Hanoi, and done entirely by motorbike from Lao Cai, back to Hanoi (so I'm ignoring the visits we made before taking our motorbike, namely the inland Halong Bay of Tam Coc ):
- 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 full details of each stage, see our dedicated itinerary for 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 ฿ (€566) or 1,655 ฿ (€44) / day for 2, quite reasonable for an excellent trip , even better, and for the first time, we not only didn't exceed our budget, but spent less than expected and had 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 (+ 3,565 ฿) and the motorbike rental for 12 days as well as the night train to Lao Cai, also booked in advance through an agency (with a deposit of 30% of the total amount): Flamingo Travel , which I recommend, very good contact and efficient (motorbike = $12/day and the train $33 per person, in total 8,085 ฿).
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 for everything in Dong , the local currency. We exchanged our baht and dollars (we had both just in case) as we went along; this is possible in most hotels, and there were also banks in every city 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 covered the 1300 km of roads that made up our route. Roads that aren't always in good condition, with quite a bit of roadwork going on. The advantage is that there's very 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, with the exception of Hanoi, the general welcome was very good , smiles, friendly people, ready to help us despite the language barrier (almost no one spoke English).
And speaking of language, it's one of the region's weaknesses . Apart from Sapa, which is very touristy and therefore easier to find someone with some English, we only encountered two or three people who spoke even a smattering of English during the rest of our stay (including the policeman who issued our permit to visit the region in Dong Van ). This was also the case in the hotels; very few foreigners venture independently into these remote areas, so we couldn't rely on English for communication.
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, having already lived in Asia on a daily basis and being used to the excellent Thai cuisine, full of flavors, being confronted with this kind of food 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 😉
