Today's plan was to do a boat tour through the Tu San canyon along the Nho Que river which is the largest canyon in southeast Asia. It was a steep, curvy motorbike ride to get down to the trail which goes down to the river.
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| Women washing hemp fibers in a mountain stream. |
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| Two big vehicles passing each other in a town. This is actually a wide part of the road. |
The boat tour is a popular thing to do, but it was not straightforward on how to get down to the boats. A woman "told" us to park at a cluster of buildings and we could walk down. After debating our options, that's what we did. It was hot and it was a steep trail down, but no one else was around. Then, our trail intersected with a rough motorbike path which some people rode themselves, but most people hired a driver. We both agreed that we were happy to hike if it meant we didn't have to ride that path. Mostly, we were relived that we were going to correct way.
When we got to the boats, we saw lots of Vietnamese tourists dressed up. The boat tour is a popular place to do photo shoots. The canyon was impressive, but it was almost more interesting to watch the people on the boat. Fallon and I were the only white people on the boat and people kept on requesting to take pictures with us. What an odd experience.
The white totem will be lit to "help" their spirit move on to the afterlife (at least this is what we think we were told).
Let's take a moment to talk about the roads on the Ha Giang loop. At baseline, the roads in VietNam are not great and the rules of the road are non-existent. The roads on the Ha Giang loop (far northern rural VietNam) are bad roads on steroids. The main roads connecting the major towns are what would be considered 1-way in the United States and they are jam packed with blind hairpin turns as they wind through the mountains along death cliffs. And then there are the man-eating potholes and gravel everywhere which are treacherous on motorbikes not to mention the regular rock or landslides that cover half of the road without any warning. To add to it all, there are dogs, chickens, ducks, children, water buffalo, goats, cats, etc roaming in the middle of the roads. During harvest season, people use the road to dry their corn, so you have to be ready to avoid that as well. Combine all of this with drivers and riders just making up their own rules and it is all about survival.
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| The hike down to the boats. |
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| Kabobs of tiny shrimp and fish |
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| Our tour boat |
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| A Vietnamese woman dressed up in a costume for a photo shoot |
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| More photo shooting in costume |
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| Vietnamese passengers asked to take pictures with us. |
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| Kind of awkward taking pictures with total strangers but we went with it. |
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| Strange sandal tans |
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| A local fishing boat in the canyon |
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| A place to rent costumes before going out on a boat |
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| Lots of steps in the hot weather to get back to our motorbikes. |
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| Two sweet local girls who wanted high fives |
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| You can see the house part way up the hill where we had to hike to for our motorbikes |
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| There are people carrying harvest baskets all along the roadsides. |
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| Check out the top of the bus in the back - there are ducks! |
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| The ducks are all packed in bags with holes for their heads. That's one way to get all of your ducks in a row. |
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| Big trucks always have the right of way. They just lay on their horns and plow through. Locals just pass on their motorbikes, but frequently we pull over. |
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| Animal slaughters were happenings at this building for a funeral. |
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| For the funeral, the women connected to the person who died were all dressed up. |
The white totem will be lit to "help" their spirit move on to the afterlife (at least this is what we think we were told).
On our ride from Meo Vac to Du Gia, we got to add miles upon miles of construction to the experience. It isn't possible to actually convey just how treacherous the riding was in the construction, but trust me when I say that it was rough. I didn't get any pictures of it because I was uber focusing on self-preservation.
Once we got through the endless construction, we felt pretty accomplished and quite relieved. The rest of the ride just had the regular road obstacles with which to contend, but we were definitely able to enjoy the ride and the scenery on the stretch after the construction which was outstanding!
Our sore biscuits were quite happy to arrive at the CN Du Gia Homestay. Unfortunately, our small room opened to the main hanging out area which meant lots of noise and cigarette smoke in our room. The mosquito netting meant the breeze from the fan didn't make it us and the trek to the bathroom went right through the main area (where people partied with karaoke until late).
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| Women walking through a small town with harvest baskets while hand spinning hemp. |
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| Water buffalo in the middle of the road |
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| This part of the road was dreamy after the construction |
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| An old French fort |
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| Fallon riding next to corn drying on the side of the road. Sometimes it would take up as much as half of the road. |
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| A woman using a giant spinner for processing hemp fibers |
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| Mother Nature does good work |
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| A canyon near Du Gia |
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| A cool view of different terraced crops near a homestead. The rice is such a bright green! |
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| Kids herding kids |
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| One kid is waving to us and one kid is jumping for joy |
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| Our hostel in Du Gia. Don't be fooled by the beautiful exterior - it was a bit rough with loud karaoke going through half the night. |
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| Apparently gummy bears are not meant for the hot and humid weather in VietNam. |
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| A H'mong man named Binh who talked with us for a while about life in the region. |
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| Dinner at the CN Du Gia homestay |
You're doing a great job with blog! I feel like I've been there without having to take the long flight.
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