We rode for 8 straight hours through intermittent rain back through the traffic/construction hell that is Hai Phong to stay ahead of the storm. We finally made it to the town of Ninh Binh(famous for its karst formations that you can take a slow boat through) and got a room at Khach San Hoang Hai. That night at around 2am the storm hit with full furry, 70mph winds and heavy heavy rain. The power went out and our room had huge ten foot tall windows on three sides which luckily didn’t break(which was very worrying while trying to sleep) but they did leak like a sieve leaving our floor soaked. When we got up in the morning roughly a quarter of the trees in town had been blown down(including one right across from us that could have hit our hotel, and our windows) and the local Vietnamese were out with their hatchets(hatchets, lol, not even an axe much less chain saws) at 6am trying to clear a path through the roads. We decided to stay another night to give them time to get the roads clear for travel, especially since we were headed for more remote areas.
When we left the next day, the gas gage was reading empty but I just assumed it must have been broken because I knew I had about a half tank when we arrived. However a few hundred feet down the road we ran out of gas. I bought some gas from a repair shop next to where we broke down and drove back to the hotel to inform them that someone had stolen our gas while stored at their hotel. The manager swore up and down this was impossible since they have cameras and refused to reimburse us. When I heard he had cameras I said “great let’s watch it from the time we arrived to the time we left and see what happened”, he of course refused. I called them thieves and stormed out and Victoria left a nice review on Google for them. All that for $2 worth of gas…. If they had half a brain they would have left a bit more so we were much further away rather than taking every last drop.
When we finally got back on the road it went from nice, to beautiful, to just absolutely stunning. The area near the border with Laos is mountainous with some tiered rice paddies, very cool. On the way to Mai Chau you climb and climb on a very well paved road and then when you reach the top you get a beautiful view of the small town below and then begin the long descent into Mai Chau itself, also on excellent road.
Once you get down into the valley it continues to amaze. You are surrounded on all sides by rice paddies which in turn is entirely surrounded by the tall green mountain peaks in every direction. Although there is a hotel and a guesthouse or two available the places to stay here are the homestays. This is where you basically stay at a family’s home which they’ve added a few rooms onto for travelers to stay. We got a room on stilts overlooking the rice paddies and mountains with a fan, an electric outlet, and bug netting for 200k dong ($9). Being at a higher elevation meant that the fan was enough to keep us cool at night for sleeping. In the town there are all kinds of hand made handicrafts for sale. This has been intentionally setup as a way to use tourism as a way to preserve traditional Vietnamese crafts in the area.
All and all the tropical storm added some unnecessary excitement to an already exciting trip and although Mai Chau was stunning we were excited to get to Laos so we just spent the one night.
Next up, our journey to Laos!
Very nice. Glad yall survived the storm. Wish we were there with you guys. $2 for a tank of gas ? Let it slide. Maybe you can find a locking gas cap somewhere. Your pics of the food alone make me drool. 😆
Yea, it certainly added a little extra excitement to the trip. Wish ya’ll were here too 😉 We did it just never feels good to have something stolen from you, even if it’s just a couple bucks. Worse was that it was at the locked storage of the hotel, I could see just parked on the street. The gas cap is actually under the seat storage area which is locked, but from what I’ve heard they’re only like seven different keys for all of these type of motorbikes, not real theif proof. It’s kind of like how all locking compartments on RV’s use the same key, absolutely nuts. That’s why I changed mine before we went to Mexico, not that it’d be much of a deterrent for a determined theif anyways. The food here is killer and the pics will continue 😉
I have read your relationship with interest. I will be in Vietnam in December and dream about Mai Chau, but I have only three days for it. I’m starting with Cat Ba. I will go to Hue with Mai Chau. I am counting one day to reach Cat Ba – Mai Chau, one day on site and one to reach from Mai Chau to Hue. Is this according to you real?
Regards.
Anita from Poland 🙂
Thanks for reading, that’s what makes us write, to try to help others along with laying our family follow along.
It may be possible but you’ll be spending the majority of your trip traveling. Personally I’d pick one or at most two of them to get done enjoyment of the area rather than being on a bus the whole time. How long is your trip? Your final destination.
Again, thanks for reading.
You’re right, sometimes it’s better to be in one place longer. However, I can not plan a second trip to Vietnam, so I want to see as much as possible. I decided to quit Ninh Binh and from Cat Ba go straight to Mai Chau. I also think about giving up Cat Ba. We’ll be in Ha Long on a two-day cruise, I hope that’s enough for us. Then I have two more days at Mai Chau.
Do you know how to get from Ha Long to Mai Chau?
Then we have to reach Hue or Da Nang with Mai Chau. Do you know if there are any buses from Mai Chau to Hue or Da Nang?
In Vietnam, we will be 16 days. First, from Hanoi, we go to Sa Pa. We will be there with the trip for 5 days, we want to rent a car with a driver and go first to Ha Giang, then to Sa Pa. Then return to Hanoi where we are going to Ha Long. The plan was Cat Ba, but I really care about Mai Chau so I think I would give up Cat Ba. After Mai Chau we go to Hue and Hoi An – for a total of four days.
Unfortunately, we are short, but we want to implement our plan very much. I hope that local transport will be good for us 🙂
Do you have any advice for us?
If your going to Ha Long giving up Cat Ba might honestly be a good choice, I heard they’re quite a similar choice, we choose Cat Ba because it’s supposed to be less touristy, although it is still quite touristy. It also is more difficult to reach requiring a ferry that we caught in the industrial district and then a short stunning shuttle. It was perfect for us since we had a motorbike, also stay aware of typhoons as we had to make an early run inland to get away from one when we went to Cat Ba. From Maui Chau you should be able to Ba catch a bus to either city. I recommend Hue as we really liked it, particularly the street food, however we didn’t go to Da Nang, Hue sounded better to us personally. Choose what looks best for you and go for it. Hoi an was our favorite city, it’s touristy but also beautiful, has some of the best street food in the world, it has both a nice beach for the daytime and the city in the evening. We spent a lot of time there because I lost my debit card and had to wait for the new one to arrive. You should also get some cloths made, or even shoes, there as that is what they’re famous for and it’s extremly cheap. I got a beautiful smoking jacket made and my wife had some pants made. Both are excellent quality and the price was very good. I don’t remember the name of the place but there are too many to choose from.
When traveling you always have to choose, you can’t see everthing and those that try end up traveling the whole time without being able to enjoy the places. Personally we always spend 2 to three days in each place, maybe more if we like it. That also helps with travel fatigue, but we were traveling for almost three months when we went to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. We also decided to buy our own motorbike instead of using the busses. It was slower but allowed us to see places we never would have otherwise.
I’m obviously Polish too and still have family back there but I don’t know them well and have never seen them or been there. At plan to make it at some point. We have to go when it’ll be warm. We don’t do the cold.
Are you really Polish? What a nice surprise !!!
In what city does your family live? I’m from Warsaw. I invite you 🙂
Poland has many beautiful places and it is worth traveling there. But you’re right, summer is best!
Da Nang only considered if there was no transport to Hue from Mai Chau. I do not really like big cities. She would like to see the Marble Mountains, watching them from Da Nang to Hue, but you can do a three-hour trip with Hue there. In Hue, unfortunately, we will only be two days and in Hoi An also two. How long do you go from Mai Chau to Hue, remember?
Yes, they live in Warsaw. I’ve never met them but they contacted me through Facebook. It’s been very cool. They were able to send me a family tree, a postcard from the my grandfather sent from a German camp my grandfather was in(he was a polish officer during the war), and translate it for me along with sending other photos and connecting more of us together. We’d really like to go but it has to line up so my wife’s contract ends at the right time of year. This year we drove to Alaska and during the summer.
You should be able to get a bus to Hue no problem from Maui Chau and from what I’ve heard Da Nang isn’t anything special. No but we drove ourselves on our moped so I couldn’t really say.
Come to Poland, be sure in the summer – you will not regret it, come not only because of the family!
I have already written a plan for Vietnam, we will be in each place for a few days, although sometimes it fails. For example, in Chile I traveled two days (plane, overnight, plane, rented car) to reach Marble Caves in Puerto Rio Tranquilo, and the trip lasted for three hours, in the cave we were half an hour … I do not regret a second with travel hardships!
Best wishes
Anita
We’re definitely planning on making a trip to Poland and probably a few other countries in Eastern Europe. Not quite sure when but it will happen.
That’s the way we do it. Make a general plan and then written around it as problems come up, and problems always come up if your traveling for a while. Chile is another country that we’re looking at going to very soon. I speak Spanish and we’ve visited a few countries in Latin America now. It also may be that it’ll be summer time down in South America when my wife’s contract ends. The next time it ends during our summer is when we go to eastern Europe.
In Chile, I was a month. I connected Chile with Argentina, and in the Atacama desert with Bolivia (Salar de Uyuni). In Chile I was from Punta Arenas, then I drove along the famous Route 40, in Argentina we got to Los Glaciares (El Calafate, El Chalten), finally we reached the Atacama desert. Before returning to Poland, we flew to the Iquazu waterfalls. A great trip. I recommend Chile and Argentina, and Patagonia is sensational. Some photos from this trip (and others) are on my facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/anita.pogorzelska.9
but you must be my friend to see them 🙂