Day four dawned much better than day three. No mortar attack. Instead, a nice breakfast of fried egg and pancakes with banana and honey, then back on the road for the return to Ha Giang city. A pretty uneventful day in truth, though the bike convoys were back in force, and as infuriating as ever. […]
And so here endeth our final loop de loop Read More »
THUD! Unh? THUD! Virle: What the goodness gracious was that? (I paraphrase.) THUD! RATATATATATAT! THUD! I grope for my phone. It’s 7am and we appear to have come under mortar attack. The noise seems to be coming from upstairs. I pull on some pants and go up to investigate. Nope. Nothing going on up there.
A rude awakening, a great day’s ride, a*nother* flat Read More »
The bikes, dood, the bikes! YeGods! We knew we weren’t the only ones who thought doing the Ha Giang loop would be a great way to spend a few days, but we never imagined… They were everywhere. Hundreds of the bleeders. We got to the first viewpoint on today’s route, and we couldn’t get near
Lovely day, shame about the, well, us Read More »
Well, we can’t say we weren’t warned. Everyone said the cops lie in wait, pull you over, demand your International Driving Licence, then hit you with a million dong fine when you don’t have one. We thought we might outsmart them by leaving at noon, hoping they’d be hard at lunch by the time we
A fine day and a million dong fine Read More »
One little bonus yesterday, when we got upgraded from a sleeper seat, which we were not looking forward to, but it was cheap, to the front row of a VIP limousine, aka Ford Transit with big seats. But other than that, nothing to say about the ride from Hanoi to Ha Giang. And only one
Preparing for the loop Read More »
It’s hot, it’s humid, it’s Hanoi. And it’s like we’ve never been away. The only thing we’d forgotten is the complete absence of tuk tuks. We never gave it a thought last time we were here, but having come to rely on them, we were amazed to find no sign of them here. Apparently they
Well, that was one of the more stressful days of our trip. Starting out when we took the tuk tuk to the address suggested by Booking.com, arriving with just seven minutes to spare before departure time, only to find it didn’t exist. “Go to Giant Ibis by the market – NOW!” commanded Virle (she can
Hey, Vietnam! Nice to see you again! Read More »
Not a great deal to say about yesterday – we took the van back to Phnom Penh. A long and boring journey, shared with a woman and baby for an hour, a Cambodian workman, for a different hour, and, other than that, about 20 bags of cabbages, carrots and onions. That was it. The only
Bye Cambodia, thanks for everything Read More »
Let’s be honest, some days are a bit of a let down. They’re good, you enjoy them, and it’s probably no more than the weight of over-heightened expectations. One day, with the benefit of distance, you’ll look back on them with a fondness that would surprise you now. This wasn’t one of those days. Today
You cannot but feel privileged Read More »
After the first couple of hours out on Suk’s tuk tuk tour, I said to Virle, I’m going to have to start taking notes, otherwise I’ll never remember all the things we’re seeing. I’m glad I did. It started out with a visit to a mushroom farm, where a woman was putting a few scrapings
What can you say but what a day! Read More »