What was supposed to be a relatively leisurely day, with around 80 km to cover between Vinh Quang and Ha Giang, quickly turned into a much longer expedition than expected. In the end, nearly 150 km were covered, with unexpected detours, and that slight feeling of moving forward without ever really arriving...
But how did we get here?
A story of landscapes too beautiful to be ignored, of "promising" alternative routes (thanks to GPS...), and of that guilty pleasure we can have when traveling: letting ourselves be carried along, even if it makes the journey a little - a lot - longer.
Round 1: Frontier Area, hello China!
Today's journey took us to Ha Giang, an important stop on this motorbike trip in northern Vietnam. Important because it was normally where we were supposed to get the necessary permit to travel further north, as we were entering areas close to the border with China (even though we had already touched it in Lao Cai…)
This authorization is particularly mandatory for sleeping in hotels covering the northern area between Ha Giang and including cities like Dong Van or Meo Vac.
Like every evening the day before, I checked the route to take for the next day, this in order to avoid having to stop too often to check the route (even if in the end, I needed to stop regularly anyway, whether it was to fill up with gas, take photos / admire the view, or simply have pity on my sore buttocks).
We took the time to eat in our great restaurant from the day before in Vinh Quang, then we filled up before hitting the road.
After 2 or 3 km, we come to a fork in the road, convinced of the route to follow, I continue but not without first checking on Gmaps…. The road in question offers us superb landscapes and we progress gently, that is to say not really fast, because it remains small mountain roads.
So I had barely traveled ten kilometers when we arrived at a checkpoint, and as soon as they saw me arrive, they stopped me immediately …
At the time, I just thought they were checking my driver's license… I was quickly disconcerted when I understood, despite not speaking English, that we couldn't go any further because we didn't have a Chinese visa or the authorization mentioned above…
Because yes, by taking the wrong road, I headed straight for China (well, "straight" is a relative term given the twists and turns and the road in question), where we were very close at that time…
We had indeed come across a sign indicating that we were entering a border area (Frontier Area, see photo below), but I was not particularly worried about it, since this whole area, including Vinh Quang, remains close to China (again, I had only traveled about ten kilometers from our starting point).
Having made a complete mess of it, I knew I had to go back down to that infamous junction… I had already added almost 30 km to the day and lost nearly 2 hours … (Admittedly, we were taking our time too… But after all, we were also there to enjoy the scenery!)
Round 2: Thanks Google Maps!
Or not… Because while Google Maps is generally a fantastic tool, it can sometimes catch you off guard… And that was the case today. Try it yourself: look at the route between Vinh Quang and Ha Giang, and you'll see that Google gives you a default route of 80 km, going through the middle of the mountains.
Except that in reality, this road becomes an impassable path after a few kilometers… And the only valid route to reach Ha Giang is the one returning to the main road, lengthening the initial journey by a good 20 kilometers (and in the mountains, that counts).
See the map below, in red, the shorter route that I thought I would take and which I started to progress on for this round 2, in blue, the one that I had to take in the end:
So in concrete terms, after already making a detour of almost 30 km , I had, by trying to take this road which is not a road (well, yes, at the beginning…), done another ten kilometers, one way.
We were already worried about getting soaked because of the clouds (in the end, we only got a few drops), and now we had to deal with a significant delay? Arghhhh!!
At the time, seeing that the road became unpaved, I remained calm, thinking that perhaps it was under construction further on, and even if so, it was still passable. I tried asking some locals, who were surprised to see us there (understandably), if we could indeed reach Ha Giang by this route…
Not really sure of the answer, due to lack of mutual understanding, I continued on my way. But barely 300 m further, things became drastically complicated… The ground was no longer flat and became rocky (and since it had just rained, muddy…)
I did, however, encounter some motorbikes, so I asked again because I was getting a little panicked at the thought of going all the way back to Vinh Quang. And then came the verdict : NO, it's not possible to reach Ha Giang that way.
No but Google is abusing you too much here!!!
Ha Giang, here we are anyway!
With all that, it was almost 16pm when we went back down to Vinh Quang, since we had no other choice!
So, we were literally starting from scratch. I absolutely had to reach Ha Giang by 7 p.m. , before nightfall, because driving on a mountain road I don't know, at night… well, it's not ideal ( I've already been there, done that, in Bali ). Three hours to go 100 km. Put like that, it sounds doable…
But even despite the delay, I took regular breaks. I enjoyed the scenery, where I could finally see some rice fields that were already green.
From time to time we passed a few locals, few houses, and also few other vehicles of any kind. But knowing also that it was a bit of a "race" against time, as I saw the sun descend towards the horizon, I had to at least stay on course.
At the end, after being blocked for a while by trucks, we found ourselves a whole group of motorbikes following each other. It felt rather good to no longer be alone on the roads and it made me take a good rhythm, while night was falling.
At 19 p.m., I reached the bottom of the mountain, joining the main road. But there were still about 40 km to go, in the dark, to reach Ha Giang. We arrived there shortly before 20 p.m., so we were 4 hours late …
On the way to eat, we noticed the relaxed atmosphere in the streets of Ha Giang and families with children were out in the park, before a storm hit a little later... I was very happy when we finally settled down at the hotel (rather classy considering the price), already sheltered when the wind got up furiously.
We stayed at the Cao Ngyuen Hotel, so as to be close to immigration to get the authorization we needed for the next day. Great comfort for an unbeatable price! (400 Dong, or €000!)
The next day's stage was going to be exciting as we were arriving at the part I was most looking forward to, the Dong Van region.
Have you ever been lost while traveling? How did you react?
