The Ha Giang Loop: A Low Budget Guide for Intrepid Travellers

The Ha Giang Loop is a popular motorbike trek in the northwest of Vietnam. If you are travelling to Vietnam and are interested in an authentic experience, to pass through traditional villages, and to experience a non-commercialised, down-to-earth way of life, this is a must.

About the Ha Giang Loop: this is popular a route and every day hundreds of tourists embark on it using “Easy Riders”, in which the traveller sits on the back of someone else’s motorbike and gets driven around the loop. This is popular amongst people who haven’t driven a motorbike before or aren’t comfortable doing so. Whilst this article is not about how to use “Easy Riders”, if you are considering doing this, avoid the major groups such as Jasmine or QT, as these groups can include up to 100 people and you are limited in choosing where you want to stop. A better option would be to take a bus to Ha Giang and ask a smaller hostel or a home stay to put you in touch with a local driver for a small group, or ask on the Vietnam Travel Backpacker & Guide Facebook page for a local guide.

Things to Know Before You Go

1. There are not many ATMs on the route, so make sure you have enough cash out. 

2. If you've travelled all the way to Ha Giang, it would be a shame to skip parts of the loop. 6 days was perfect for us, and I can't imagine doing the loop in only 1-3 days. 

3. You need an International Drivers Permit (IDP) to drive legally in Vietnam. That being said, it is possible and easy to drive without one, but this may void your travel insurance if you have an accident, and you may have to pay a police bribe / fine. 

4. Easyrider tour groups can be huge. Avoid the big easy rider companies such as Jasmine or QT at all costs. Consider doing the loop by yourself if you're confident in riding a motorbike. 

5. Easyriders don't stop at all the waterfalls, locations, and lookouts. Each easyrider tour stops at select spots where they get a commission from the owners for bringing large groups of tourists. 

6. If you're doing the loop yourself, you don't need to book accommodation in advance, and it will certainly be cheaper, and more enjoyable, if you just stop wherever you think is beautiful. 

7. If driving the loop by yourself, consider going anti-clockwise (against the traffic).

Motorbike Hire

We recommend using Yolo Ha Giang Adventures. I always prefer to organise tours, guides, and accommodation through WhatsApp rather than any third party websites, as this ensures that you're in direct contact with the provider, that the provider doesn't lose any money in fees to booking platforms (such as booking.com, viator, tripadvisor, agoda, trivago etc).

To contact Yolo Ha Giang Adventures on WhatsApp, message +84 865 838 216. 

We didn't have International Driving Permits which are required for any bike with more than 50cc. Yolo Ha Giang Adventures were able to provide us with a 100cc bike that had the paperwork for 50cc and instruct us on what to say in case we were stopped by the police. They were also incredibly cheap to hire their bikes, responsive on WhatsApp in case of crash or issues, and very helpful in recommending lesser known places to stop at. 

Here's a breakdown of their prices: 

Motorbike hire: 350,000₫ per day

Arm & leg guards: 100,000₫ for whole trip

The motorbike hire will usually cause insurance for the bike for if the bike gets damaged - but it will not include personal insurance for you if you're injured. You need a valid international drviers permit to be covered for personal insurance, otherwise you are riding illegally. 

International Drivers Permit (IDP) or Lack Thereof

If your country has ratified the 1968 Convention on Road Traffic (list of countries available here) you can apply for an International Drivers Permit, which you can do from your home country. This will allow you to legally drive in Vietnam and ensure that you are not fined by the police. 

You can drive legally on a bike that is 50cc or less without a license, HOWEVER, this is extremely dangerous on the unsealed roads of the Ha Giang Loop, and we STRONGLY suggest that you get a semi-automatic or a manual bike of at least 100cc. It is simply not safe to ride an automatic or a 50cc bike on this road. 

If you choose to drive without an IDP, there are a few considerations to take in mind: 

1. Any insurance you have for injuries will be void and if you are hurt or involved in a crash, your travel insurance will not cover you if you do not have a valid license. 

2. You may get caught by the police and have to pay a fine (bribe). 

Bribes

Bribes are usually between 1,000,000₫ - 3,000,000₫, although that doesn't necessarily mean you will end up paying 3 million dong. 

When riding, make sure you have all your cash hidden in your bag where it isn't accessible. Instead, keep only 500,000₫ in your wallet or with your phone. When the police pull you over at the check point and tell you the fine/bribe, show them that 500,000₫ is all you have. They may ask you to follow them to an ATM to take out more cash. You can argue that you don't have access to your account, your card is empty, or that you're meeting a friend in a few days who has the rest of your cash because of your card issues. If you want to be extra cautious, I usually travel with an ATM card linked to an empty account. When the card doesn't work the officer will usually give up and accept the 500,000₫ bribe instead. 

Remember, when dealing with bribes, be as friendly as possible to the officer, and remember that they are only human too. Whilst we don't like to play bribes and associate bribes with corruption, do try to remember that often these officers are very low paid (or in some countries, may frequently have their pays skipped, withheld, or reduced), and in exploiting tourists for bribes, they are supporting their families. I can count on one hand how many times I have actually paid for bribes, and most the time have been able to talk my way out. 

To talk yourself out of a bribe, start the conversation very jovially. Express your love and appreciation for their country, and tell the officer how excited you are to finally be visiting their beautiful home country. You can then ask the officer how their shift has been going and when they get off. Or ask them if they're going to relax and have a beer after their shift. These officers are used to tourists arguing, being defensive, or getting aggressive to avoid bribes. If you treat the officer as a friend, engage in friendly conversation, and tell them how much you love their country, they're a lot less likely to ask for a bribe. A friendly smile goes a long way!

Safety & Insurance

Please remember that if you do not have an IDP, your travel insurance will not cover you for any personal accidents that you have on the bike. That being said, you should still get travel insurance for anything else that might arise!

If you are not very confident riding a bike or confident in your balance, you can consider joining an easy rider tour. That being said, Vietnam was the first time I ever rode a motorbike and I picked it up pretty quickly. You will need to make a judgement call based on your confidence. 

If riding solo, it will cost only around 100,000₫ (USD$4 or AUD$6) to get arm and leg guards. For the love of life, just get these and wear them. To be honest, I think the pictures we took with the motorbike gear look better than the pictures we took without them. And it's less than the cost of a coffee to protect your arms and legs. Just get them. 

If you are travelling with a friend, you may be tempted to get one bike and share the driving. I actually recommend against this. If you're not used to driving with someone on the back of your bike, it really can affect you balance and your safety. Plus it was so much more fun to drive our own bikes and enjoy the wind in our own hair. I felt a lot safer on my own bike, especially when driving across gravel, dirt tracks, potholes, and washed away sections of the road. 

Route Direction & Duration

Most people go clockwise around the Ha Giang Loop. 

We chose to go anti-clockwise. 

Best decision we could have made. 

All of the easyriders go clockwise, and getting stuck in an easyrider group could be very stressful. Some easyrider groups (such as Jasmine and QT tours) were up to 40 people, and getting caught in the middle of them makes you A) feel like you're cattle being herded around, and B) feels dangerous as you may have 20+ bikes trying to overtake you on gravel roads. 

In going anti-clockwise, we were also going the opposite way to where the police were stopping people at checkpoints. If the police aren't busy at checkpoints they may stop foreigners going both ways, but even the police at one of the quiet checkpoints we passed towards the end of our trip seemed uninterested in stopping anyone going anti-clockwise. 

You can do the full Ha Giang Loop in 4 days. Any tour for a 1-day or 2-day trek either won't be doing the full loop, or won't be doing any stops. Similarly, a 3-day trek will involve a lot of time driving, or will involve cutting off sections of the trip, and likely will involve fewer stops. We took 6 days for our trip and it was perfect. We were able to do the loop, but also take some dirt roads through the middle of the loop and explore some lesser visited villages, for which we didn't see any other foreigners on the road. 

What to Book in Advance

NOTHING!

It is very easy to travel the Ha Giang Loop without booking in advance, and you will likely have a signficantly less stressful and more enjoyable trip if you book as you go. 

There are lots of motorbike hire places in Ha Giang. If you want to use my recommended vendor, you can contact Yolo Ha Giang Adventures on WhatsApp (+84 865 838 216) a few days in advance to ask if they have bike/s available for you, but you do not need to book or pay until you arrive. 

For hotels, the "best" homestays - i.e., the most touristic - may book out in advance. If they're booked out though, you may want to consider getting off the beaten track and staying somewhere a bit more local. A booked out hostel/homestay on the Ha Giang Loop means that they likely have one or multiple easyrider groups staying at their premises. 

We instead opted to stay wherever we stopped for the night. This meant that we weren't rushing through dangerous stretches of road to get to our accommodation in time. Instead, around an hour before sunset (sunset is between 5pm-5:30pm, depending on whether you're in a valley or a mountain top), we would start looking for accommodation. Most small villages have little homestays which are marked by handpainted signs out the front. I prefer to stay in these places, as here I may be the only guest they've had in days or weeks, and I know that every dollar I spend goes directly to the local family, without any costs being taken as commission by tour operators. 

Accommodation

There are several homestays along the way, and I cannot recommend them enough. Staying in a homestay, particularly in a village that isn't freequently stopped at by the Easyriders, is a great way to experience local culture and enjoy a more authentic experience. Download google translate on your phone before you go so that you can communicate with your hosts as well, often they'll be excited to sit up and talk with you. 

My favourite home stay was in Đường Thượng, a beautiful sleepy village nestled deep in a valley directly before the hardest part of the Loop if you're travelling clockwise, or directly after if you're travelling counterclockwise. We enjoyed this small town so much that we doubled back at the end of our trip and passed through it again. There's only two home stays here and I recommend just turning up. One of them we found on booking.com later advertised for 250,000₫, although upon arrival it was only 150,000₫ and the owners get the full amount in cash without paying fees to booking.com, or without needing to travel to another village to get cash out. The accommodation also offered a "western dinner" for 60,000₫ consisting of rice and deep fried chips, although a few doors up we found a local restaurant where you could get delicious fried rice or noodles for 15,000₫. This was the cheapest place we stayed and was the most local. Our homestay host was the teacher at the school across the road, we were the only foreigners in the village, and we awoke at dawn to the roosters cawing.

If you want to lash out and enjoy a luxurious night, you can consider staying at Mã Pì Lèng EcoLodge, or the Mã Pì Lèng Panorama Hotel in Mèo Vạc. Both of these hotels offer incredible views from a cabin nestled right on the edge of the mountain over the dramatic Mã Pì Lèng pass. 

Mã Pì Lèng EcoLodge | 1.2 million dong per night | WhatsApp | +84 352 692 699

Mã Pì Lèng Panorama Hotel | 1.5 million dong per night | WhatsApp | +84 34 333 7879

I always recommend to make bookings via WhatsApp or messages without paying until arrival. This way, you eliminate risk of being scammed and rocking up to be told you have no booking and losing your money. And if the accommodation isn't what you expected, you're then free to move on to somewhere else without losing cash. Plus, more importantly, all the money you spend goes directly to the family you're staying with, rather than to the booking platform. You'll often get a discount for paying cash on arrival too. 

Fuel

Fuel was ridiculously cheap all along the Ha Giang Loop. To fill two bikes up fully would cost around 100,000₫! The only challenge is that fuel isn't readily available everywhere, and the fuel gage of your vehicle may be slightly off or unreliable. If your bike is under half full, I recommend you stop at the next petrol station you see and fill up there. 

If you get stuck and are running low on fuel, ask any local if there's someone selling fuel for motorbikes. You'll almost certainly find a local with an old 1.5 litre bottle full of fuel. They'll charge you slightly more than a petrol station (i.e. 30,000₫ instead of 20,000₫), but it will never be a significant amount to you. Please be an ethical traveller and tip this local! Keep in mind, if they're selling you their fuel, they will also need to go and buy more fuel for themselves later on. They're also may be a substitance based agricultural worker rather than someone in the tourism industry, and your tip could have a big impact on their family. 

Food & Water

You can find local restaurants all along the Ha Giang loop. In the small town a meal may cost as little as 15,000₫ (AUD$1). In a larger town it may cost up to 100,000₫ (AUD$6). In a fancy "western-style" luxury accommodation, it may cost 400,000₫ (AUD$25). 

As for water, you will need to buy bottled water during your trip or have a very reliable water filter. If buying bottles of water, try buy larger bottles and refill your own resuable botte to reduce plastic.

All Potential Stops & Lookouts

The below map has is a comprehensive list of places to stop and enjoy the Ha Giang Loop. 

Yellow Stars Recommended Stop

Purple Stars Worth a detour

Red Ps Police Checkpoint

Blue House Recommended Accommodation