Minority Report: Part II - Vietnam's Hidden Paradise

The previous night we decided to give it a shot and to get to Northwest Vietnam - Meo Vac and Dong Van. The little info in Lonley Planet and Rough Guide promised the most stunning views possible in Vietnam - so off we went.
Early in the morning, we took a shuttle to Lau Cai (1h/20k dong) and from there to Bac Ha (2.5h/30k dong).

Bac Ha was a really nice surprise for us. Not a single foreigner in the horizon for the first 3 hours, nice and welcoming people and laid-back surroundings with not much to do except wait for Sunday's market - just what we were after. We found a tour agent (in the main road, 3 min. walk before the main tourist hotel) who offered to take us with a jeep, driver and english-speaking guide all the way to Ha Giang, Meo Vac and Dong Van, but didn't budge off $240 for the 3 days trip. Anyway it was just too expensive for us, unless we could find someone who'd join us. We weren't that optimistic about it.

After just 60 minutes, the good Lord (have to mention him/her once in a while), led us to stummble upon our soon to be new travel buddy - Micah, a well-travelled Californian who'd already spent over a month in Vietnam and is traveling in Asia indefinately. It took just a couple of hours for all of us to decide to hire the jeep and leave together first thing in the morning ($80 pp).

On the first day, we traveled some 180km between Bac Ha and Ha Giang, stopping in amazing markets and villages where we were the only foreigners, taking photos every 5 minutes and having just the most fabulous time. That was simply the best part of Vietnam we've seen - and it was all ours. Although our guide seemed to be more interested in finding different ways to overcharge us (read: rip from before) than helping us out, we decided not to take it too hard as we were having superb time.

The following day, we headed 150km north to Meo Vac, again passing through stunning rice terraces (far more impressive than the ones around Sa Pa) finally arriving in Meo Vac late afternoon, where Micah had accidently tasted some dog-meat (lots of laughs about that).
We rented motorbikes (50k dong per bike) and drove some 15km to the region we were so excited about, the 22km connecting Meo Vac and Dong Van.
We slowly climbed on the long mountainous road, that slowly revealed what was by far the most stunning, impressive place we've been to in Vietnam. It was just beautiful: a steep canyon with green-blue water river flowing hundreds of meters below, dotted with minority villages/houses, corn fields and rice terraces. Stunning! On the way back, we stopped to speak (or communicate as best we could, considering they spoke no English) with one of the women from a minority village. She and her family seemed very excited to see us there (except the baby who had probably never seen a white person before and didnt quite know how to react) and invited us to their house. In return, we gave them cookies and snacks which really won them over! It was a great (albeit surreal) experience.

On the third day to our trip, we drove back to Ha Giang, again passing through the amazing canyon, more rice terraces and villages. During all those days, we only met a two other foreigners - an Italian couple working in Ha Noi. It was by far the best part of our trip to Vietnam. True, you can't come to Vietnam w/o passing through HCMC, Hoi An, Ha Noi, Ha Long Bay and Sa Pa - but had we done just that, it just wouldn't have been a complete experience for us.

We returned to Ha Noi that night, preparing to leave for China the following morning.

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