Today we have a big day of riding from Bac Ha to Ha Giang of 200km. Riding up and down mountains and continuously riding through villages with different ethnic groups. In this region are Hmong, Phu La, Black Dzao, Tay or Nung minorities. Some of these ethnic minorities can’t be met in any other areas. Some of us carried a bag with little gifts in to stop and give to the children. The little girl at the below I stopped and gave her hair ties with ribbons on them.
It wasn't raining so much today but some of the tracks were still slippery and muddy. Some of these tracks had rocks embedded in them, and you would go passed a group of woman that were sitting on the side of the road crushing the rock by hand into smaller pieces and this is what they had used to pave the roads with. Even in some of the remotest areas here, the houses some of them are just put together with sticks and rocks and some roofing iron, but still there is a TV satellite dish on the outside and the people are so happy and so pleased to see these people racing through villages on their noisey minsk motorbikes. In Vietnam their scooters and motorbikes are utility vehicles used to get from A to B not how we use them for recreational purposes.
Had to stop for a bit of road works along the way, this time they had big machinery doing the work.
They probably breed these little cutie's for food
Another slippery piece of road heading up a mountain and it had steep sides. Hai had stopped then Scott, Robert and myself then next thing Goog come and whew, she's over the edge.
Boys to the rescue. Man that was lucky, she wasn't worried came up laughing and said, Did you get that, well got the photos and the video
On one road we had to do a turn around as the bridge that we were to cross the river, was under repair. We were guided down this narrow muddy track winding our way down the hill to a bamboo bridge stretched across the surface of the river. I think lucky it was sitting at water level and not twenty feet up in the air. Seemed to carry us all without to much swaying around.
A short clip of crossing the river on a bamboo bridge
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| Bamboo Bridge we crossed Then it was not long after crossing this bridge we were on a sealed road that had allot of sand and little stones on it. I dam well fell off, not once but twice. Ended up with two grazed knees and two grazed elbows, which was pretty lucky coz I could get up and keep riding. Although one knee did swell up pretty badly. I had a helmet cam filming all the time we were riding and managed to capture the crashes. It was a picnic lunch on the side of the road where I got my grazes attended to with anitibiotic washes and covered to avoid any infection. |
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| stopped to view the mountains in the distance (China I think) |
A woman and child stood by the whole time we were having lunch just watching. I gave the child one of the little gifts. We had quite a few of the baguattes left at the end of lunch and she was given these to take home.
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Vietnamese woman that watch while we had lunch  
Drying rice on the side of the road
Woman doing her washing in the river
Prepairing lunch
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Rice paddies in Ha Giang Province- when we were here the rice had been harvested, but that was good coz you could see how the terraces are all made up, below a couple of photos borrowed from the internet, one showing the paddies before the rice is planted and the lower one showing the rice grown nearly ready for harvest 
Tonight we stayed at a French Eco Lodge which was right on the rivers edge. Dinner was in the restaurant with another group of very loud Vietnamese men and a few young girls. Interesting to see how they did the dishes. Don't know where they got the water from but all the dishes were done in a big bowl and placed into another bowl. Probabaly got the water out of the river. Breakfast was in an adjoining room with eggs bacocn and baked beans and baguatte which I think was supplied by our tour leaders. But the Vietnamese were not knowing how to cook bacon and eggs and Angela had to go into the kitchen to show them how, after we sent back some uncooked bacon.
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French Eco Lodge-Ha Giang View of the river from our room, in the morning there was a woman doing her washing is the river.  
Bikes all serviced and ready to go in the morning
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