It sure has been a while since I have done one of these things. I can't say that it isn't because I haven't been busy. My parents and two of their friends came to visit  at the beginning of April, which was quite fun. We spent a weekend at Ha Long bay on a boat, just enjoying the scenery. It was quite spectacular there. However, what we saw in Ha Long Bay was not nearly as nice as what I saw up in northern Vietnam in the province of Cao Bang.

Two weeks ago my friend Nathan and I learned that the weekend that was coming up was actually a four day weekend. Excited by this news we quickly tried to figure out what to do with it. A mutual friend of ours had recommended Cao Bang as a destination worth visiting, so we decided to do that. After doing some checking, we decided that it would be really fun to do the trip by motorbike. We had enjoyed biking in the mountains in the past and from what we had heard it was really mountainous where we were going. So that week we got a second motorbike from MCC and a map. On the Saturday at 7:00 I went to Nathan's house to pick him up and hit the road. Unfortunately I had forgotten my passport and so we had to go back to my place to get that. We were about to leave again, when I realised that we had no idea of how to get to Cao Bang. We had a map, but neither of us had looked at it. After consulting it we plotted a course and were underway.

The first three hours of riding were hellish. Hanoi never really ends until the city of Thai Nguyen, and the whole way there you are riding in really dusty conditions and driving bumper to bumper. Traffic in Hanoi is bad, but is nothing compared to that highway. Fortunately things changed in Thai Nguyen.

The Map above is color coded for each day of riding. Red is the first day where we went to Cao Bang, the second is green and we went to the Ban Gioc waterfall, the third is blue and we went to the Pac Bo cave, and  finally purple is the fourth day when we went home via Ba Be national park.

In Thai Nguyen we stopped for a break and had coffee in a little coffee shop and had a nice chat with the owner. After that we were suddenly in the mountains and the traffic died down until there was hardly any body else on the road. From Thai Nguyen  to Bac Kan was quite enjoyable, though Nathan almost ran out of gas just outside of Bac Kan. We stopped for a Pho lunch in Bac Kan and then continued on our way. The scenery kept getting better and better, and the road was in excellent condition. It was a real joy to go zipping around corners and up and down hills on the motor bike. Finally, after about 8 hours of driving, we arrived in Cao Bang city, where  we planned to stay.

The next day we planned to visit the Ban Gioc waterfall on the border with China. There was two ways there that were nearly equal in distance, so we decided to go one way, and come back the other. The guy at the desk at our hotel told us to go only one way, but based on how the roads were the day before we figured it really didn't matter which way we took.

Going to Ban Gioc we took the northern route, which was the way we were told not to take. For the first three hours or so it was just like the day before, with even less traffic.

Half way up a pass

Then we turned off the road we were on and were shocked by how much the road conditions degraded.

However, to make up for the potholes, we were treated to the most gorgeous scenery.

A small town we passed through

Eventually we met up with the road that we would eventually take back and stopped for lunch. After lunch we ploughed on to the falls. The road seemed to be getting better, which was a relief. Then we hit the red mud.

That truck was stuck and not going anywhere

Due to whatever circumstances they were putting this soil onto the road. It was around three inches deep and incredibly slippery. You could feel your bike slipping around... right up to the point when you flop over. I was fortunate as I was going pretty slow when I lost control. My bike just fell on its side and my pants got coated in mud. Nathan got launched off his bike at one point, but wasn't hurt. It wasn't much fun to drive in. eventually it ended and we arrived at Ban Gioc.

The border between China and Vietnam straddles the falls. much like Niagara. The Chinese side is built up, whereas the Vietnamese side is a little less touristy.

There were little boats there that you could pay 300,000 dong to and they would take you right up to the falls. The ones with red tops came from the Chinese side while the blue ones were from Vietnam.

After seeing the falls we drove home on a remarkably better road, though in my opinion it was less scenic.

The next day we went to Pac Bo. It is the place that Ho Chi Minh stayed when he returned from exile and started the revolution there. Like Ban Gioc, it was right on the border.

There were some times where we figured that we had entered into China.

Our goal at Pac Bo was to find Ho Chi Minh's house, as it has been preserved. We climbed one mountain, but after an hour of straight up climbing we were sure that it wasn't there. We climbed another mountain that one guy told us has something of importance, but after fourty-five minutes we found out that the house wasn't there. Finally we went back to the parking lot and found another path there that led off into the hills. Five minutes later we found the house.

The view from Uncle Ho's House

The drive home was not as nice as the drive up. We decided to take a detour and visit Ba Be national park as it was sort of on the way. It was a pretty area with a large lake, but unfortunately we had misjudged how long it would take us to get there so we couldn't look around to much. It took 8 hours to get to Cao Bang, but it took nearly 13 to get back. We were exhausted by the time we finally got home.