Continuing on the Ha Giang Loop

March 3 – Day 9: We continued on the “Ha Giang Loop” from Dong Van to Cao Bang. We were lucky to stop for lunch in Meo Vac just before a major downpour which lasted almost 2 hours (complete with thunder). The rains were so hard that there were rock slides and trees down on the road. Now we knew for sure that we would not want to be on bikes. Fewer pictures as we had a long journey ahead so not as many stops along the way.

Once the rain changed to drizzle we headed out again, but it was a slow drive because of the road conditions. Initially we were to stop overnight in Bao Lac but as soon as we saw the “hotel” and Josie checked the food options we knew we had to make a change (Josie felt that the local eating places were inappropriate for foreigners). Hung, our driver, agreed that we needed to move on even though it meant another 3 hours of driving. It was actually good that we carried on as there were few vehicles on the road and Hung was such a good driver that he was able to get us around the rock slides and debris without any issues.

We arrived in Cao Bang around 7:00 p.m.. We were able to get a reservation at the Max Hotel for an extra night so all was good….except the power was out at the hotel due to the storm. Luckily there was a really good family owned pizza restaurant, Pedros, close by and their power had been restored. The owner was French and he said he and his mother-in-law make the pizza – even Josie liked the pizza and ended up taking one back for Hung (Hung wanted to stay with the car as our luggage was in it). By 9:00 p.m. the power was back on, Hung had his pizza and we were all ready to crash.

Yes, this was an eventful day, but there was even more to come. At 10:30 p.m. we were awakened by a knock at our door. I yelled “wrong room” and we tried to go back to sleep, but there was a commotion in the hall. Then there was a louder knock so I got up and had to open the door to hear what they were saying. There were 2 police officers, a lady with a “temperature gun” and a fellow who was taking notes and could speak a little English. They all had on the surgical masks. They took a picture of our passports with their phone and then they “took our temperatures” with the gun. We filled out a form which included a list of everywhere we’d been in Vietnam (thanks goodness for my detailed itinerary as they were able to take a picture of our itinerary which saved time – the fellow was actually impressed that we recorded it all). Since we had already been in Vietnam for more than 14 days and we did not have a temperature according to the “official” and they left….and we went back to bed. The check was because there was a new case of Coronavirus in Vietnam.

The description above makes it sound like we had a bad day, but it was just all part of travel in the remote areas of Vietnam.