Restrap Does Vietnam (Film)

Photos by Gideon Jones

After hearing many great things about Vietnam, we knew it was worth checking out. Our usual Google search of “Biggest mountain pass in [insert country name here]” revealed a stunning road called the Mã Pí Lèng Pass, known as the “Sky Road.” After finding return flights to Hà Nội, the route almost made itself. We would ride north towards the Chinese border, deep into the mountains, cross the pass, and head back to Hà Nội for our flights home. A simple plan that came together quickly. We had two weeks total to play with and 550 miles to cover, a sweet spot in the fun-to-distance ratio. We are on holiday, after all.

Other than the need-to-knows, we went into the tour with fairly limited research. We didn’t know what to expect from the route, the road surface, the rest stops, or the food. I find throwing yourself in at the deep end is a lot more fun. It makes cultural differences much more apparent, helps you discover things naturally, and lets you learn throughout the trip. Looking back, it would have been nice to know how to say “homestay” in Vietnamese earlier than nine days into the trip. We all opted for similar setups: gravel bikes, drop bars, bikepacking gear, and tyres suited to a mix of road and gravel.

Starting out

Upon arriving at Hà Nội, we stepped out of the plane and into the sauna. Within minutes of building up the bikes, we were drenched in sweat, but for now at least, it was a welcome change to a very British springtime. First impressions from the airport were good. We were immediately into the rice paddies and the kinds of cut-through roads we had been anticipating. We quickly realised that minor roads on Komoot were a rabbit’s warren of driveways, dirt tracks, concrete slabs, and dead ends. A few times, we stumbled on what looked like military academies, guarded by soldiers with AK-47s, intent on turning us around. Figuring that hitting dead ends repeatedly and potentially ending up in a military jail would spoil our trip, we opted to take main roads where possible to get the miles done.

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The first portion of the route immersed us early. While the idea of main roads would put most people off, in Vietnam, it’s not bad. It’s a land where the scooter is king, and the traffic flows like water. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the horn on a Vietnamese Honda Cub wore out before the brakes did.

The difference in cuisine became quickly apparent on our first stop, where we got the chance to spend some of our newfound millions. A bánh mì costs 10,000 VND, which is roughly 30 pence. They aren’t small, either, and they taste fantastic.

The Mountains

A busy 160 miles of flat riding took us into Hà Giang, and what we would soon discover was the refuge for the gap-year student. Turns out, by complete accident, we had planned our route along a significant portion of the Hà Giang Tourist Trail (another symptom of our lack of research), so we would be sharing our mountain climbs with hundreds of twenty-somethings on the backs of scooters, waving selfie sticks about, singing Barbie Girl while on a journey to “find themselves.” It’s a good thing, then, that Vietnam is great to look at. The mountains here are like nothing I’ve seen anywhere else. Tall, steep limestone monoliths jut out from the terrain below, and the road winds its way up and around them, often on a precipice with huge drops off to one side.

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The climbs were pleasant, with gentle gradients, winding their way up to the peaks and offering mesmerising views at each step to the summit. Descending the smooth roads was brilliant fun, with scooter-dodging adding a bit of spice and the main danger being the buffeting wind pushing an entire climb’s worth of forehead sweat into the eyes.

Before long, we had reached the Đồng Văn Plateau and the Mã Pí Lèng Pass—one of the most spectacular bits of tarmac I’ve ever ridden. Some roads are good to ride, and some are incredible to ride. But it’s pretty rare that simply riding a bike along a road can really take you to another place. Riding the Mã Pí Lèng Pass was that road for me. It really is that good. Weaving and climbing from Đồng Văn is spectacular, but nothing can quite prepare you for the view as soon as you hit the pass good and proper.

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Up until that moment, you’re somewhat shielded from the real view and elevation, and all at once, you’re hit with an incredible panorama of views all the way across the mountain range and 4,500 feet down to the valley floor. I can honestly say I reached the bottom of the descent later that day, feeling quite emotional about what I had just seen, and weirdly repeating the phrase, “I’m speechless,” out loud to myself.

It dawned on me that riding bikes in places like this and seeing views like that could be a fleeting thing—something we won’t be able to do forever. As we get older and adult life gets in the way, it’s going to become harder to have these kinds of experiences. It brought on gratitude for these trips, and a hunger for more. This kind of thing is too good to let fade away.

The Heat

The return leg was tough. While we had been riding in some pretty damn hot weather throughout the trip so far, most days being comfortably over 30°C, the portion of the trip where we headed south took that to another level entirely. We hadn’t encountered a single drop of rain the entire trip, which is apparently quite rare in this area of Vietnam, and a heatwave was really starting to hit hard.

We had seen on the news that conditions were so relentlessly hot that a state of emergency was declared across the country. A country that is usually pretty hot to our pale British bodies anyway. Over the next three days, we were really battling the sun, which was so fierce it felt like standing an inch away from a patio heater. Temperatures got as high as 48°C, and our pace slowed to a crawl.

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Climbing a relatively small hill took us roughly three hours. Shade-jumping and regular breaks every few hundred metres to calm a soaring heart rate meant our speed went from being measured in miles per hour to hours per mile. At the summit, we agreed that two more 4,500-foot mountains in this heat were simply dangerous. If we could feel our organs coming to a slow boil on a climb less than a quarter of the size, attempting a huge, exposed mountain climb in the same conditions could result in something serious. Even descending in this heat was unpleasant, like being inside a hair dryer. It wasn’t safe.

We changed our route to the flattest, most direct one we could, bobbing and weaving our way through mountain roads and gravel tracks to get out of the mountains. It worked, but it was tough. On one of these days, we spent the entire day covering roughly 35 miles because we kept stopping so often. We knew we had made the right call.

We arrived at Chợ Chu and picked up our route again. That night, the heavens opened in the most spectacular storm I’ve ever witnessed. The sky became a strobe light show of lightning, and rain bucketed down. It felt like the release of a week’s worth of tension at once.

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It’s All Over

The two days riding back to Hà Nội took us through the flatlands, much the same as the first two days. The average speed was high, and the gentle downhill kept our momentum high. We were back into a cloud of scooter fumes, swimming our way through the traffic like sardines in a sea of traffic. Before we knew it, we were back where we started.

This trip felt like a real adventure, with precisely the kind of hectic energy we had been craving while planning. There’s something genuinely magical about experiencing Vietnam by bicycle. Like all tours, bikepacking lets you truly take in the country at a pace that enables you to be completely immersed in it—even if being immersed in Vietnam feels like you’ve been through a tumble dryer while being constantly beeped at, with a mouth on fire from some mystery sauce, and a slight need to visit the loo.

But what a place. It’s a place where nothing ever stops, a place with the friendliest, most welcoming people, and a place with some of the most incredible views you can see on two wheels. Vietnam is a country that embraces chaos with open arms, then feeds it a sandwich and tells it to sit down and take a load off. This trip will take some topping, but, as always, we’re on the hunt for the next one.

Further Reading

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