To get from Hanoi to Sa Pa, Jake and I took the motorcycle on a meandering path through the countryside of northwest Vietnam. We passed through flatlands and mountains, t-shirt weather and brr-imma-freeze-my-fingers-off weather, smooth stretches of pavement and rocky dirt roads, large towns and tiny villages, and a variety of agriculture. The people everywhere were friendly, the beds were fairly hard, and the food was hot and tasty. And we even did a homestay in a wooden stilt home.

In planning our adventure, we consulted posts on two different travel blogs. EggBanana Travel’s trip report was the inspiration behind our chosen route. Vietnam Coracle’s homestay post inspired us to try it.

Day 1: Hanoi to Bản Hiêu (~140 km)

We survived getting out of traffic in Hanoi! The narrow roads in the Old Quarter and the lack of right-of-way rules make it difficult to make left turns when you need to, so we ended up making a couple of short detours. After that though, it was smooth sailing from Hanoi out towards Hòa Bình.

Inspired by the travel blog Vietnam Coracle, we decided to do a home stay in the ethnic Thai village of Bản Hiêu. The village is located at the heart of the Pù Luông Nature Reserve, and the minority communities who live there are given special permission to continue farming the land. Several entrepreneurial families run homestays in the village.

After turning off of the main highway, we made our way up the steep single lane road to a mountain pass (dodging trucks and speeding motorbikes headed in the other direction), then down the even steeper road on the other side. We were treated to fantastic views of terraced rice fields in every direction.

We were still looking for the village of Bản Hiêu as the sun was starting to set. Luckily, people we passed recognized that we were backpackers in search of a homestay (probably from all our gear strapped to the bike, but also because we saw very few Vietnamese riding Honda Wins outside of the very steep mountains of the far north). Everyone kept pointing us down the road. Word must have spread, because soon a scooter drove up then stopped alongside us. The rider introduced himself as Tuan and told us to follow him to his father’s homestay. The two kilometers of road that followed were loose and steep; after Jake stalled the bike for the second time, Tuan fearlessly swapped, letting Jake ride his clutchless Honda Dream, and taking the Win (and me) himself. As dusk turned to dark, we arrived at the house, grateful to have found shelter for the night.

Tuan’s family cooked us an absolutely delicious (and bountiful) meal of fried spring rolls, meatballs, sautéed vegetables, scrambled egg rolls (similar to Japanese tamago nigiri), and rice. They then showed us where we could sleep, in a separate room of the house set aside for travelers; we had the whole large space to ourselves, although the next night there would be 12 people coming to stay. As we lay in bed that night, staring up through the mosquito net at the thatched roof supported by bamboo poles, we marveled at how incredibly lucky we were to have found the place.

Day 2: Bản Hiêu to Mai Châu (68 km)

We awoke the next morning to magnificent views we had missed during our nighttime arrival. After a delicious breakfast of crepe-like pancakes with a sweet syrup akin to honey (and custardy bananas), we took a walk down through the terraced rice fields. We observed rice seedlings being replanted into flooded rice paddies, and marveled at the incredible straightness of the hand-planted lines of sprouts.

After our walk, we loaded up the bike and said goodbye to Tuan’s family. As we made our way out of the valley, we had a small spill that resulted in a misaligned front fork. Although we were a bit rattled, the bike seemed to drive alright (with the exception that the handlebars needed to be turned right in order for the bike to travel straight). We resolved to stop at the first mechanic. However, after a mechanic shop on the side of the road in the middle of the mountains yielded only confusion on both our part and the mechanic’s, we revised that plan to first find a nhà nghỉ (guesthouse) in the nearby town of Mai Châu, then find food, then find a mechanic. After settling into our guesthouse, we decided to put off the mechanic visit until the next day.

Day 3: Mai Châu

The visit to the mechanic ended with us fixing a whole slew of things. We’re not sure how much of it was strictly required, but the explanations seemed to make sense and we decided it was better to be safe than sorry.

• Front fork alignment
• Oil change
• New chain and sprocket (resulting in a different gear ratio, better for getting up the steep mountain roads near Sa Pa)
• New rear wheel bearings
• New brake clamp (it squeaked… and still does, so something else is probably wrong)

The mechanic only ended up charging us 700,000 VND, or about $31, for 4.5 hours of work (although his prices were a lot higher than what we’ve since been charged for similar work elsewhere). We concluded that the majority of the cost was due to the cost of parts, not labor.

After a clean bill of health, we decided to take the motorbike and explore some of the Thai villages just outside of Mai Châu. We drove through a couple villages of wooden stilt homes, where the open first floors had colorful textiles on display. After wandering for a bit, we ended up having a dinner of delicious roasted meats under one of these houses. We shared our table with a large group of Vietnamese tourists, and one of the men shared some of their home brewed rice wine with us, which he pointed to and enthusiastically shouted “Rượu!” (alcohol).

We decided to hunker down in our same guesthouse that night, despite the somewhat hard beds, the sad and moaning guard dog, and the persistent nearby rooster. The wifi was strong, the proprietors were friendly, and the room only cost 150,000 VND ($6.67) per night. However, I concluded that roosters are strange, strange creatures.

Day 4: Mai Châu to Mộc Châu (59 km)

After a breakfast of savory pastries eaten by the roadside, we began to make our way up into the mountains. The mechanic from the previous day had warned me that it would be cold, but we didn’t realize just how cold it could get. We ended up driving through dense fog and I had to keep wiping condensed water off my visor; Jake had to drive with his visor up to minimize distractions. We warmed our hands and knees over steaming bowls of phở bò halfway through the journey. And when we checked into a guesthouse in Mộc Châu, the first thing we did was get the in-room water heater going so we could soak in a hot bath.

One highlight of the drive was a field of white-flowered, light green plants that covered a hillside shortly after we crossed the provincial border from Hòa Bình into Sơn La. The plants had been groomed to form several concentric hearts. We stopped to take pictures of the tourists taking selfies on the hillside, then turned to look into the mist-filled valley on the other side of the road.

Day 5: Mộc Châu to Phù Yên (91 km)

Despite the cold of the previous day, we decided to push onwards to our next destination. The wifi at the previous hotel was so slow as to be nonexistent, and the weather in Phù Yên was expected to be a couple of degrees warmer.

We stopped for baked goods at a convenience store in the mountains. The woman running the store was incredibly friendly, and commented that Phù Yên was still a ways away. A family of three drove up on a scooter as we were eating, and the young daughter giggled from behind boxes as we waved to her.

The trip from Mộc Châu to Phù Yên involved a 15,000 VND ferry ride across the Black River (Sông Đà). We boarded alongside three other motorbikes and their passengers. After several sputtering attempts, the pilot got the gas engine running and we began our slow crossing of the broad, lazy river.

Back on the road on the other side of the river, we passed numerous corn and banana fields. Interspersed with the houses, we saw many elevated wooden storehouses for corn, as well as banners proclaiming types of varietal corn seed for sale, for example 9698. At one point, we passed a pile of these bright orange cobs piled high on a tarp at the side of the road.

Day 6: Phù Yên to Tú Lệ (123 km)

We passed through many rice fields, including lush green ones planted awhile ago, spindly sparse fields that were just planted, and empty fields yet to be worked on. We also passed through hills covered in dark green tea bushes. There were stunning valley vistas as we wound our way through the mountains.

In an attempt to warm up (the day was still cold, despite being warmer than the day before), we stopped for coffee and a bánh mì in Nghĩa Lộ. The proprietors (we assumed a father and son) were friendly; the son spoke some English and the father stood to shake our hands as we left.

Tú Lệ was bustling when we rode in around 5. There were tons of people in the streets, as if a street market had just closed down. About an hour later, after we’d checked into our hotel (a recommendation from EggBanana), we wandered out in search of food. We were unsuccessful, as all the stores and restaurants had been closed or were empty. We ended up returning to the hotel’s restaurant for a tasty meal of bamboo shoots, fried chicken, and sautéed goat, with Bia Hà Nội to wash it down.

A music show, possibly a talent show, was taking place at the school up the street as we finished dinner. The building’s gated courtyard was packed with people, and more motorbikes kept arriving as we walked past.

When paying for water and snacks at a convenience store, the storekeeper stopped Jake so she could get a better look at his driver’s license. She then turned to him and said “mọt-chín-chín-hai.” We grinned sheepishly and shook our heads to show we didn’t understand, and she smiled in response. Two minutes later, we realized that she said “1-9-9-2” - she was commenting on Jake’s age. One of the things we purchased at the store was sesame-covered crunchy candy cylinders stuffed with peanuts. As Jake has repeatedly said, THEY WERE SO GOOD! And ever since, we’ve made a point to try variations of them at other convenience stores all over northern Vietnam.

Day 7: Tú Lệ to Than Uyên (83 km)

On our way out of town, we stopped to get the motorbike chain tightened and to get sweet pastries from a bakery. I’ve gotten good at pointing to tasty things and saying “mọt cái” — one piece. We rode out through a H’mong village and stopped amongst the rice paddies to eat the pastries.

During our journey, we wound our way up the mountains to a pass. Next to a building in the pass, we saw a sign labelling a parachute jump point, and a corresponding billboard advertising parasailing. We decided that we’d rather keep our feet planted on the ground (or the motorbike foot pegs) for now.

As we descended down the other side of the pass, we shadowed a river in the valley. The river contained at least four hydroelectric dams, and we passed a fifth under construction. It made me wonder who ordered construction of the dams, and how they compensated the farmers upriver of the dams whose rice paddies are now underwater.

We stopped to buy more pastries in the charming town of Mù Cang Chải, which we ate while sitting in the town square, before continuing on. Once we arrived in Than Uyên, we checked into another nhà nghĩ recommended by EggBanana. From our 200,000 VND fourth floor window, we had a fantastic view of the nearby lake and main road.

Day 8: Than Uyên to Sa Pa (95 km)

After a yummy breakfast of phở bò, and a near mishap where the motorbike’s gas tank almost overflowed during refueling, we rolled out of town. We passed more idyllic rice paddies mixed with tea plants. As we made our way further into the mountains, we noticed that fewer of the paddies had been flooded with water and planted. We weren’t sure if this was due to weather pushing back the rice season, farmers purposefully letting the ground lie fallow, or the farmers moving away.

The last 10 km of the ride into Sa Pa was brutal. We had made our way up to the mountain pass (Trạm Tôn Pass) before Sa Pa, and although there was some fog, it wasn’t very cold. As we crested the pass and began our descent we noticed a large patch of blue sky and felt the warmth of the sun. However, within half a kilometer of first appearing, the sun disappeared and was replaced with impenetrable fog, so thick that we could just barely make out the taillights of the motorcycle we were tailing. The damp fog combined with the wind chill meant that we were shivering with cold hands (despite gloves) and cold feet (despite wool socks and leather footgear) well before we reached Sa Pa.

Our first order of business once we arrived in Sa Pa was to find a restaurant with warm food and drinks where we could dethaw. We then found a hotel, which at $22 per night is the most we’d spent since our first couple nights in Hanoi. However, the in-room heater, soft bed, warm blankets, nice bathroom, and wifi made it all worth it.