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Published: December 14th 2007
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The Bac Ha Market
The hill Tribe People are so colourful! Saigon - Hanoi - Bac Ha - Motorbike Adventure
We started off in Saigon...another city I am sad to say! We maybe didnt give it a chance but we were pretty citied out and ready to get into the rural far reaches!!Crazy busy city!! wespent a nigfht and headed straight out on the train, up to Hanoi!
30 hours later we tumbled out of our train and waited for it to get light, had a mooch aroundthecity and decided that we didnt want much time in another big city so we booked another train out that night to Lao Cai. It was quite a fun day in Hanoi, looked around, got lost in the shanty parts of th city and only just made the train!! But did have a gorge meal to get lost for!! Oh and we finally decidedto take the plunge and hire a motorbike totour the mountains, I was soooo excited!!
Another 9 hours on the train and we tumbled out at Lao CAi to be eternally harrassed by touts to get a bus to BacHa, we tried getting away from them but they persisted!! We got on the bus, got ripped off but hey
The Bac Ha Market
The Hill tribe people are so colourful ho, after 3 days worth of travel you can only take so much!! Another 3 hours later and we were in Bac HA - soooo cold - what a difference from the last few months brrrr!!
Pretty misty place but was good to be somewhere not being hassled again!!! relax...well as much as you can whilst freezing!!
Bac Ha was good fun and the market was something else!! I was so eager to get to the animal section and we both wantedto find the local moonshine hee!!! Upon finding the animal sectionthough it was pretty hard going...not something us westernerers are typically used to seeing, unless I have gone soft!?! The water buffalo were amazing to see up close and stood with such dignity but then they were the only ones not there for food....there were pigs, chickens, dogs, chickens and ducks and even some goafers!! The food stalls were right next to all of this and the butcher stalls just on teh other side! The market was such an awesome experience though, they had everything and it was still mainly catered for the locals - barbers stalls, smoking stalls (where D triedthe local smokingtool - a bong
like smoking instrument!)moonshine, fruit, veg, meat, nuts, rice cakes, clothes, shoes and then of course teh usual tourist stalls - 'come look!'.
We walked up to see one of the H'mong hill tribes - very pretty land and such modest housing!!! was great to see all the different animals playing....the funniest was a puppy chasing a pig, then it turned to chase the puppy!!
Then.......we secured a deal to hire THE BIKE!!! Our little beast - Honda Win 100!! Yep a whole 100 cc to transport the both of us hee hee!! D had never ridden and I hadnt ridden for years......bit of a gamble.....
But sooo worth it!! Its now day 5 of our Honda Tour and what an absolutely amazing trip it has been!!! This is the first time we have had chance to get to the internet, I sit here aching a fair bit after 5 days of pretty solid biking over pretty rough terrain!! But wow - we have seen some awesome views and been to some amazing placves and met some really nice people!
DAY 1
the dreaded technical gitch we had dreaded...happened on day one about 5 miles out of
The Bac Ha Market
The Hill Tribes all walk down to Bac Ha every weekend to sell colourful wares! Bac Ha...hmmmm...didnt fill us with confidence...but we got it fixed and made our wayto Xin Man....we werent quirte expecting thetechnical sectionsthat we encountered!! The Lonely Planet wasnt joking when it said 'Bac Ha to Ha Giang, the toughroad is only for thestrongest 4WD or very experienced bikers'....hmm, my arms were aching after one oftehscrambles up and overboulders, I lost the front end twice!!!But on we went, triedto get past a non road, only to be laughed at by all the kids working on the road and having to back track!!! D had his motorbike initiation.....not the easiest I must admit.....but he did pretty well consideringthe bike and the terrain!!! The scenery was just amazing - moutaineous, rice paddies, tress, everything!! We got lost another couple of times and came upon what we thought was our first detsination, with relief to be surrounded by intrigued kids wanting to touch, look and ask....no possible communication possible, they couldnt understand any of our Vietnamese attempts and just kept pointing down the road '1 km!' But 1km came and went, we tried askingthe local workers returning from the fields, laden with corn, but blank looks and just smiles acme our way!!!! Luckily a man
undrestood us and pointed and held up 5 fingers....so on we went and found Ha Giang 5 km down the road...just as it was getting dark phew!! The brakes didnt enjoy the downhill fin al section, thank god for engine braking!
We dropped our bags at the hotel and ventured out to find a well deserved beer...and stembled upon our first experience with 'Xeo' - local moonshine.......we found a local place with some tables n a few people, who came to drink tea out of avery small pot and cups, we managed to smile laughand have some banter, they made us join them for dinner and then the xeo came out - honeycomb stuff too!! i think it was a shot every 4 mins and we proceededto get hammered with tehdad, mum, 2 kids, uncle and a few other randoms that came and went!! Nice food apart from when they started putting lumps of fat in our bowl!!Had some strange seed things for dessert that you bite open and eat, we couldnt do it so just ate them, tasted like popcorn anyway!!
DAY 2
Woke up the next day with a very sore head, no water and all
over aches from thebike!! We went for food at the local Pho house (noodles) and had to do shots with the locals (urgh)!! took some pressiesto our family and headed off again!!
We passed through so much more beautiful scenery today, very mountaineous and windy roads, an average of say 15kph, but at least the roads were more like roadsthan scrambling tracks!! there were waterfalls everywhere and farmland was made out of every hill - amazing ability of the locals!! we were both loads better on the bike and started taking it in turns driving based upon when the person on the backs ass ached too much!! The people around here are amazing, so friendly and inquisitive and readyto wave and smilewhenevr you pass - it must be novel to havetwo westereners passingby , feel like celebrities!!
Towards the end of the day we even got on proper roads and got up to 30-40kph, the front end didnt feel like it could take much more than that!! Found a nice hotel and got some veg hmmmm!!!decided to stay away from the majority of meat sincethe market experience and also seeingteh amount of flies on the unrefrigerated meat ...gulp!
The Bac Ha Market
The Water Buffalo DAY 3
Awoke even achier than yesterday - arse, legs, arms... Managed to communicate to some degree and get a stack of bananas, apple and orange!! And avoid any formn of moonshine for breakfastWe arrived in Ha Giang and had an unsuccessful trip in gettinga permit to go to the north, they wouldnt issue one without a guide for the area due to the close proximity to China...and of course we couldnt afford one!! Soo cahnge of plan and on to a different road tiowards Cao Bang, so much to see whichever way you go!!
And wow - whata a ride - sheer limestone cliff faces and massice rocks seemingly jutting up from the groubnd!!! pine forests, more paddy fields and more brilliant people!!
Stopped for lucnch and hadto partake in the dreaded moonshine again, we even got our own bottle this time! Lovely family, good food, deep fried bread and butter hmmm.....then on our way again....We finally reached Cao Lau after some pretty tough bumpy road endurance testing again!!! serious balancing skills required!! Felt like celebrities again.....people soo helpful and friendly!!
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