Vietnam for 4 weeks December 2025

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Fantastic, Keep up the good work on providing the updates. This is certainly on my Bucket List.
How much luggage do you carry?

Ride Safe

TA Steve
I've got 2 light pannier liners with clothes in for the side panniers. A tail pack on the rear seat. and use the top box for light waterproofs and drinks etc etc. not too much. The bike shop are shipping the big suitcases which we used for the flight for our gear from Hanoi to go chi Minh.
 
Dinner last night was interesting.
A big pot on the table with chopped up duck with all the bones. Some veg a bit like potatoes and some greens.
There was also some local speciality apparently.
It seemed to consist of a bit of chopped meat and thick blood, I put my vampire teeth in and managed half of it to be polite, the other 2 abstained. 😳
A typical Vietnamese communal meal. The homestay actually had electric blankets on the beds. So that was plugged in flat out. It was turned down as the night wore on as I was actually too hot.
We were up at 06.15 to hopefully see the sunrise but alas the clouds had rolled in. Oh well I had a coffee anyway.
They made me a nice fried egg and some lovely bread for breakfast.
As rain was forecast for later we decided to head up to the dinosaur's spine early. I really didn't want to try the dirt track in the rain.
Panniers were removed.
Off we set. Richard rode straight past the entrance. Obviously missing the signs. Waited for him to come back and looking over the edge we saw there were 2 tracks at the start. Chris and I opted for the slightly easier one further back down the road and Richard did the other.
We made the right choice I think. We met at the fork a few hundred metres in. Carried on and slipped and slided our way to about 80% of the way along. Wisely parked the bikes up and walked to the end.
There was no way I'd fancy riding the final bit on a dirt bike let alone on the CB500. 😱
Awesome views and a lot of tourists there taking their photos at the end.
We returned to the bikes and managed the return journey without any incidents.
Though it was tough riding again.
It was still dry so we rode the rough roads back up to the town to wander around. I needed some more coffee sachets too. Had coffee.
Bought coffee sachets.
Wandered around.
Got back on the bikes and headed up the hill some to see if we could see the view on the other side. By this time the clouds were well below us and we sat in a coffee house for a while out of the rain that had started.
It got heavier and heavier. This was set in for the day.
After an hour or more it was decided to return to the homestay rather than stay out in the rain.
Waterproofs on for the first time.
The long trek back was very slow.
Very muddy and slippery and a few lorries to navigate along the narrow road made it very difficult. We got back though and are drying out now. Not many miles at all today but we achieved the objective. I was just 12 Kms from it last year but decided to return down to the town at the bottom of the pass as it was late and they closed the road at night as it's so dangerous.
Mission accomplished.
 
A few pics and also Google maps didn't gave a clue where we were 🫣
 

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As seen above, a lovely start to the day. Up and mostly packed and down for breakfast at 08.00.
A fried egg and some sticky rice of some sort cooked in a piece of bamboo. I managed half of it but gave up. 🫣
We duly paid for the rooms, food and drink but by this time it had started raining.
Waterproofs on. The road back out was very wet and muddy all the way out. Sliding all over the place. 35 mins to do 12 Kms again. 😳
We then set off north over the mountains.
There were a few breaks in the weather here and there and there were some wonderful views of the mountains with the layer of low cloud far below us.
There were many many remnants of last year's landslides that are still not fully repaired.
A couple of times in the clouds the visibility was very near zero. Quite scary.
We pushed on regardless. Refueled at a fuel station in the middle of nowhere so at least we knew we now had enough for the day. It really is quite isolated up in this region. We stopped for a bit of lunch for the other 2 at a small rural snack place. They got a good meal for a couple of pounds.
I don't tend to eat much in the daytime. It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable whilst riding so I just had a couple of light snacks from my stash.
It was actually quite bright at this point so waterproofs off.
And on we went.
But it did start raining again soon so I put them on again.
I stopped quite a few times to snap a few pics of the stunning mountains and valleys all along this route.
There was one particularly long downhill part that was a very wide concrete road with some good hairpins and many more landslides .
Very slippery in places.
It's a common theme again methinks.
We started to ascend again over another fantastic pass. With more lovely views. I rode this in the other direction last year early morning in the clouds and did practically the whole pass at less than 10kph. I didn't get to see any of the spectacular views then, so it was nice to finally see them. We descended the other side into a huge valley with hundreds of beautiful terraced tea plantations. Astonishing.
After reaching the town, I was looking for a homestay and accidentally went to the same one I stayed at last year.
Only 2 rooms available though.
Tried next door and the guy thought he had 3 rooms. But on inspection I was a bit dubious as the room he showed me had 2 double beds with polythene covers. He then struggled to find keys for the other 2 rooms.
I graciously turned it down.
He then took me on the back of his moped a km down the road to show me another place which was actually ok. So I accepted the offer of the rooms.
He then took me back to my bike and the others.
They were laughing their heads off at me at 6'4" sitting on this old man's pillion seat on his moped.
We then headed to our stop for the night. Had a little wander into town. On return we were served a lovely dinner.
Fried tofu
Chicken and vegetables.
And egg soup.
Some braised fish.
Minced and spiced pork.
Some more vegetables.
And rice of course.
It was quite lovely.
There appears to be an awful lot of music noise coming from where the other homestay was so I'm glad we didn't stay there now.
Anyway. A great days riding. Not a huge amount of Kms. About 190 I think but it took 7 hours. It's slow going in those twisty back roads,
And the twisty main roads as well come to think of it.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.
 
It was a little cloudy this morning at 07.30.
Got up, packed, showered and made coffee. I sat around for some time chatting with Chris who was also mostly packed.
At around 9am Richard finally stuck his head out of his room. 😳
Waited for him to pack and we were off in blue skies and lovely warm weather
By around 10am.
A beautiful ride on the first part twisting all along the river valley, lots of Dams and a lot of repair work still underway after the storms. The road was good and fast. We're doing over 65kmh at times and using all 6 gears 😜
Turned right at the end to head up into the mountains after a brief stop for coffee and a snack.
The road rose steadily upwards through many beautiful tea plantations yet again. Stunning views and beautiful blue skies.
We had to negotiate quite a few bits of roadworks in the mud where the landslides were being repaired, at least it was dry.
The road was very wide in places on the mountain pass to accommodate the lorries and buses.
It was quite quiet today which was nice. Maybe because it is Saturday.
The pass is probably Vietnam's highest road pass and near the top we stopped at the rest stop where the huge glass bridge is high up on the mountain.
Last year the weather was so bad I didn't even see the mountain let alone the views and the bridge, I was crawling along up here at about 20kph maximum so as it was so nice to be here again in sunshine.
we paid out half a million Dong and went up in the super high lift to the top for the view. Amazing view at the top and just a little disconcerting walking along the glass floor with hundreds of metres of drop directly below you. It is also around 600 metres long stretching around the mountainside. We spent some time up there then headed back down to the bikes. Carried on for maybe 3 more hours. Had to divert from the route I wanted because the road was closed. Probably due to the landslides still.
It took some time to get through Sappa.its a big town on the hillside with many large hotels etc. very touristy.
It was really heavy with traffic and quite a route through the houses. Once through the town the road was the usual mix of great and terrible.
Immaculate or severely potholed. I think between us we must have ridden through all of them.
We did the usual dodging of animals in the road. So close to hitting some but we were unscathed. Great roads again despite this flowing along river valleys and deep gorges.
It was getting a little late and this area seems devoid of homestays.
Even finding a motel was proving difficult.
I navigated to one in the end but it was a bit remote and we needed somewhere to eat. so I backtracked to a town 5 Kms back and we found a nice one for the night.
We went down the road for some food.
After a lot of translation problems leaving Richard to try to order food we finally got a couple of things then had to ask for more as it all got confused and we were given a plate of fried chicken feet😱 which was returned.
We ate what we got anyway and it was satisfactory. Wandered back to the motel being accosted by very Interested local children. Why do kids screech so much🙉
A great days riding. We aren't covering very much distance daily but it really doesn't matter.
We are only about 45 Kms from the Chinese border up here😁
Onwards further north tomorrow
 
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More pics
 

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It was main road riding today to start with, and lots of traffic for the morning ride up to ha giang.
Making progress but not riding too fast, or so we thought....
A police vehicle was travelling the other way then about 5 Kms further on it came past beeping its horn and pulled us over. Checked our documents which were fine but then proceeded to tell us we were speeding.
He said we were doing 70 in a 50. 🤔
They made us follow them back to their compound where we were given a lecture and then they started off by saying a colleague had reported us speeding and they could keep our documents for up to 10 days and we'd have to come back for them.
This turned into we could pay a 7,000,000 dong fine and leave now.. this was each....
I was going to start negotiating and Richard was saying don't do anything to antagonise them.
I said I'm not we need to negotiate.
He seemed somewhat worried.
Anyway I started the negotiations.
I said first that it was too much. He offered to drop it to 5,000,000.
I may have been too hasty at this point and made an offer of 3,000,000. I really should have started at 1,000,000.
The bloody policemen duly accepted. Dam it. 😳
We had no choice than to pay up. And we were on our way.
We called in at style motorcycles here to get the chains adjusted and lubed. Much needed.
Told the lad there about the police and he just said you shouldn't have paid as they didn't show us any evidence of said speeding offence and they gave us no paperwork either.
I'm pretty sure they just saw tourists and they knew that they would be getting a nice Sunday bonus.
£300.00 they got out of us. Small fortune over here.
Oh well. It's done.
I plotted a better route up to a nice valley with some great homestays. We set off. Very very twisty route busy with some traffic. Difficult road to overtake on. Lots of fun though. Then we turned off onto the second road north.
A mixture of very rough gravel and potholes, Wet tar on gravel,semi repaired stretches, some reasonable roads and some absolutely fantastic parts heading over the pass.
We stopped at a homestay I've used before. It's a wonderful place away from the hectic village down the road.
Took the bags off and put them in the room and rode down to the waterfall a couple of Kms away. Took some pics and returned to the homestay in the dark.
Food was ok too.
Not a bad days riding in superb weather.
Further north tomorrow. If the weather's ok we should see the Chinese border.
 
Didn't take many photos today on the main roads. But here's a few.
 

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A great days riding today. All the usual in terms of road conditions. From truly awful to sublime Twisties. The scenery everywhere up in this area is just astounding. From High mountains and incredible valleys and some of the best views of the iconic limestone conical mountains in the country. We trundled on all day including going up to the northern flag pole yet again. It's my third time riding up there and this is the first time I've climbed all the steps to the top for the view. A nice sunny day helps that no end as I could barely see the tower last year let alone any view from the top.
I should have taken my mini telescope up to spy on china. 🫣
But I left it in my bag.
We stopped at a few lovely scenic places and pushed on south east for a couple more hours to find a homestay. There wasn't anything in between on the unbelievably Twisties road all the way to the home stay. Richard picked it on the map and it turned out it's the same one I stayed at last year. 😁
Out to a restaurant for a bit of food. You wouldn't think it would be difficult to order a bit of food from a menu. But the young girl didn't seem to have a clue. Eventually we ate.
A few pics to follow
 
A few pics IMG20251215073122.jpg
 

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And a few more
 

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We had a pretty good ride today. Managed to get away at 08.30. as I said we needed to cover some distance to leave a couple of hours free in the afternoon to visit ban gioc waterfall.
I've been there on my previous two trips but I'm repeating a lot of stuff so the other 2 can experience it.
We had a good mixture of roads as always. Some very dodgy little mountain roads too 70 kph sweeping bends on good tarmac.
We also traversed the famous Khau Coc Cha Mountain Pass, great road but it was sort of more interesting before they put new tarmac down and made it much wider 2 years ago. Still a great view though.
Lots of landslides in the hills still awaiting clearing as is the case everywhere.
One was pretty much rim deep mud and I was taking my time selecting a track through. Chris decided to just hack through on my right-hand side. Duly got stuck with the bike laying on his foot. 🤣🤣
I was too slow to get a pic.
I led us to the gods eye mountain again. They'd moved the entrance to the track to get so I had a little trouble finding it but we got there in the end. It has been very wet down there again this year and it's really muddy and drying mud on the higher levels. We watched a few Peds trying to tear through it and one of them fell off into said mud. We chuckled a little.
There is not much of the greenery that was there the first time I went.
The other two went for a little trundle around whilst I waited drinking my coffee.
I'd explored most of it before so decided not to ride around in the mud.we then headed back up the steep hill in the mud to get out. We all managed it well on a fully loaded bike.
After this I pushed on for another 90 mins or so to get to a motel near ban gioc waterfall and we unpacked and ventured down.
Just like everywhere over here over the last 2-3 years, tourism is taking over, there are many market stalls all the way in selling trinkets and souvenirs.
At least they've moved them outside now instead of all the way down the path to the falls.
The falls were very impressive this year compared to when I was here last year. The water flow is probably twice as heavy. It's a wonderful sight. We did the tourist thing and did the bamboo boat ride out to a few feet from the Chinese side of the falls. Waved at the locals over there. Quite surreal really.
We will get some dinner later and venture back down the road to see if they put the light show on again. It's quite a sight.
All in a very nice day and though cloudy with a few spatters of sunshine the weather is still holding well.
I'll see if I can get any pics of the light show later too.
 
A few of today's pics IMG20251216085459.jpg
 

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