The second day on my new bike brought me to Than Uyen. It’s a good thing I ended up going back to Hanoi. If I’d continued from Son La directly to Than Uyen, as I had planned, I would have ended up at a road that stops at a river and no bridge! I might have been able to hire someone with a boat to transport me, but luckily I did not have to deal with that.

Not much to say about Than Uyen, it’s a town on the way to someplace else. My next stop was Sapa. Holy overtouristed batman! This is the number one tourist destination in the north. I stayed there for a night and got out of there. There is an “ethnic” village just outside of town, which should be avoided. Sapa should be avoided as well unless you need a “people speak English” fix.

That leads us to a destination I was excited about, Can Cau. It’s an ethnic village that is hard to get to and has a market on Saturday. The drive from Sapa was not good, the road was soaked, and it was treacherous riding. At one point, I had a corner slideout, and the bike and I went down. There were no injuries to either of us, but my ankle was sore. I was delayed by the weather and did not arrive until 11 am. The place was filled with tourists and minibusses, which is hard to believe considering how bad the road was. It was a letdown, but that’s the way of things sometimes. I returned to Bac Hac and got a room for the night.

Bac Ha is called “little Sapa” because they are trying to build up their tourist industry there. What I found there were helpful locals outside of the tourist area and predatory tourist bilkers in the tourist area. Not my favorite town. There is a Sunday market in Bac Ha, but it is known to be over touristed, so I just got out of there in the morning.

I made a run through the Bac Ha to Xin Man route, a rocky trail through the mountains that saved about 300 kilometers of travel time. I’d heard bad things about this road, but it wasn’t so bad. Sure there were some intimidating hill climbs, and the whole road was “paved” with rocks stuck out of the ground a few inches. I took a wrong turn in the morning and went 20 K on the wrong road. I knew I was going the wrong way, but it was so beautiful I just kept going. I stopped short of the Chinese border and turned around, then took a shortcut to where I was supposed to be.

I spent that night in Xin Man, and today I drove to the Pan Hau Ecolodge, a resort that’s very pricy for a budget traveler, but I needed some rest, so I took a splurge day. It’s a very relaxing atmosphere. I arrived too late for lunch, so I took a ride a couple of K’s back to find some food, all I could find was ramen, so I brought it back, and the cooks prepared it for me and through in some veggies!