The Northern Loop is my blog series about a short motorbike trip in North Vietnam, starting and ending in Ha Giang.
Northern Loop Part 4 - Dong Van to Bao Lac
Our third day of riding was pretty cold and overcast. We left Dong Van after having some coffee and quickly found ourselves riding through rocky, jagged, and lush mountains. We had been told that this was going to be the most scenic part of our trip, so we planned on taking things slowly. Here are some of the photos from the day's ride.
A big cave on the side of a mountain.
The mountains look a lot like dragon teeth trying to come out of the ground.
A lush valley.
There were some amazing areas to ride through.
We passed this monument that was being built.
A little town in the mountains.
Selfie time!
The ground is so rocky, it's hard to believe that anything can grow up here.
A lovely mountain road to ride on.
A big river in the valley.
The road eventually went down into the valley.
@doctorcrypto trying to get rid of some of the candy that I brought.
Stopping for a quick break.
These uneven terraces are interesting to me, for some reason.
A nice little town.
Rice terraces.
I think the little huts like this are used for drying things.
These kids put out their hands for high-5's when we drove by, so we stopped and gave them some candy.
A small village where we stopped for a break.
People hauling cargo on their scooters.
We spent much of the day next to this river. Our hotel would end up being right next to the river as well.
@doctorcrypto checking out a house.
A nice little farm being worked. This is where we filmed part of the vlog.
@doctorcrypto looks like he was about to say something.
A plant.
Some beautiful farm land.
We ended up stopping at Bao Lac. I don't recall if that's where we planned on stopping, but it felt like the right time and place to stop. It ended up being a great decision because we had a lot of fun there. After getting a great hotel room, we walked down to the market.
These are cigarettes. The red ones seem a little racist to me.
The market was fairly busy.
Some of the trees grow giant citrus-looking fruits (@doctorcrypto for scale).
These fruits looked interesting, but we ended up getting smooth-skinned lychees.
This is a meat cart. It looks like those are dog feet on the bottom shelf.
After the market, we went out for some food and beer. For food, we had Banh Mi Doner Kebab.
Just one of many reasons why I love cultural appropriation.
For drinks, we went to a restaurant/bar that was close to our hotel. Some guys that were also drinking started pouring us shots. After that, the phones came out everyone was taking pictures and cracking jokes.
The liquor that these guys were pouring was strong but smooth. A very dangerous combination. After 4 or 5 shots, both @doctorcrypto and I were feeling pretty drunk. We decided that it was best to go back to the hotel to sleep before we ruined the next day with hangovers.
We got to our hotel and instantly had shots handed to us. A karaoke party was going in the hotel's dining room and we got sucked into it.
Just an FYI, the water bottles aren't full of water. That's rice liquor.
Both @doctorcrypto and myself got peer-pressured into going up and singing a song. Because they didn't have many English songs, @doctorcrypto had to sing an ABBA song that he'd never hear before. I lucked out and they chose "We wish you a Merry Christmas" for my song. I've got footage of @doctorcrypto singing, and he has footage of me. This ensures that neither of us will release embarrassing footage of the other.
The party ended after an hour or two, and we called it a night. We did have hangovers the next day, but it was probably worth it. We had a boatload of fun that night.
Here's the day's vlog. There is some drunk vlogging at the karaoke party at the end of the video.
This is our route for the day.
That's it for this day's journey. Stay tuned for the hungover ride to Cao Bang, next. Until then, ride safe!