My time in Southeast Asia Part I — North Vietnam
Howdy everyone! I’m back in the USA. So uh, I know I said I would try to post while I was away, but that obviously did not happen. Part of the reason is that, at the last minute, I decided not to pack my laptop. Being a novice backpacker, I had perused multiple Reddit threads to get consultation on how to pack, and the advice that came up over and over again was to pack as little as possible and, if you didn’t absolutely need it, leave it.
Another reason I didn’t post during my journey was because it was pretty go-go-go. I covered a lot of places in a (relatively) short period of time. But perhaps the last, most truthful, reason is that I didn’t feel like it. At first, I was a bit disappointed in myself but then I remembered that one day I will turn to dust, so upkeeping my writing goals while away maybe wasn’t the biggest deal.
In addition to the whole turning to dust thing, what also helped me move on from my self-disappointment was remembering the comforting words of Ayandastood, a podcaster I like, about how inconsistency is natural, and about the power of recommitment and return.
She makes the point that nature has periods of “inconsistency,” and, because we human beings are a part of nature, we are not separate from these natural laws. There is nothing unnatural about losing our flow and, when we are ready, we can always return and recommit to our goals.
But actually, I’m leaving out a detail. There was this one day that I pushed myself to write (which my editor can attest to!) I was about 3 weeks into the trip and found an internet cafe in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It was 30 baht an hour (less than $1 USD) to use a desktop computer that resembled one my family had in the early aughts.
I got a few paragraphs in, but then had to flee the cafe so that I could meet up with some new backpacker friends for a hike to a temple on a mountaintop. So as you can clearly see, I had a good excuse.
For a little more than half of my trip, I traveled alongside my friend Sydney. She often pointed out when ridiculous sentences about travel would come out of our mouths, and my saying that I couldn’t finish writing because I had to hike to a mountaintop temple is certainly one of them.
When I started to write at that cafe, I realized how intimidated I felt by the task. Each week away had felt like a different lifetime. How was I possibly going to capture the breadth of what I had experienced in a little blog post?
I can quite literally wax poetic about an hour of my life, so distilling entire weeks felt like a gargantuan task. So I did what I’ve done during many moments of stress in my life and said, “That’s a future Solange problem. Right now, your task is to just enjoy.” It wasn’t always easy, but I did my best to be as present as I could be, and to drink in the sights, smells, and tastes of every city and village I passed through. I’ve rambled enough in this intro, so I’m going to get into it now.
It all started in Hanoi, Vietnam. Sydney and I landed after our long, non-direct flights, and we were exhausted. All I wanted to do was eat street food, and crash at our hostel. We called a Grab, an app similar to Uber, and drove into the heavily trafficked city. It was around midnight, but the streets were alive with lights, food, music, and swarms of tourists ready to party (and drink more cheaply than they do in their home countries.) Even at that hour, swarms of motorbikes filled the roads and were zipping along.
Our hostel happened to be along a strip of bars and restaurants, so we had to squeeze through hoards of other humans while wearing our large backpacks and sweating in the new climate we found ourselves in. After dropping off our stuff at the hostel, we walked through the lit up streets in search of noodles.
We ultimately stopped at a shop where a woman with grandmotherly energy was squatting by a large pan and using extra-long chopsticks to sauté hot, oily noodles. We sat down at the miniature stools and short tables that are characteristic of the region and ordered one dish with chicken and another with beef. Green kumquats were placed next to the noodles, and we squeezed the small orbs onto the steaming dishes. The noodles were springy, the taste a delightful umami, and the hit of acid added another dimension to the flavor. It was a strong start.
The next morning, I started off the day with an egg coffee, a popular (and absolutely delightful) drink you can find at most coffee shops in Hanoi. Vietnamese coffee packs a punch, in strength and in flavor, and the condensed milk whipped with egg yolk gives the drink a sweet, custard-like top that you can scoop with a spoon.
Since we didn’t have much time in the city, Sydney and I signed up to do a free walking tour that we had seen advertised inside our hostel. One of our guides was a 16-year-old high school student named Miracle who blew me away. She lived outside of Hanoi, but took the bus into the city, nearly two hours each way, so that she could do the tours. The organization that provided the tours was purely volunteer-based, and she told me she did the tours because she wanted to educate foreigners about Vietnamese culture. I asked her if other people at her high school also did tours, and she proudly told me, “No, just me. I’m not afraid of Westerners.”
I also learned that her parents sometimes worried about her tour job, and advised her to be vigilant and watch her beverages. Their fears certainly weren’t out of nowhere. I asked Miracle if she had ever felt unsafe on a tour, and she told me that at times she met strange people, and that she had experiences of older men wanting to take her on dates, but mostly it was okay. I felt disgusted to learn that some older tourists would try to date a teenager, but unfortunately not surprised.
We walked all around the city, visited the Vietnamese Women’s Museum, a temple along a lake, and then, I think because we were all having fun together, continued the tour into the evening and visited a few local spots where Miracle, and the other guide Lin, advised us on good dishes to order. Highlights included banh mi sandwiches, spring rolls — which we filled and rolled ourselves — and a sweet avocado dessert, sort of like a cold soup, filled with pieces of fruit and multi-colored jellies.
I could have spent much more time in Hanoi, but I already had plans set in motion. That night, Sydney and I had tickets for a night bus headed for Ha Giang, a city in one of the northernmost sections of Vietnam. There we would do the Ha Giang Loop, a 4-day motorbike tour through the lush, mountainous landscapes and small villages that characterize the North of the country. Sydney had learned about the loop on TikTok. Truthfully, I did zero research about the loop beforehand and didn’t know much about our journey other than the fact that we’d be driving through mountains for days, but that already sounded really cool to me, so I was in.
We packed up our stuff and headed for the tourist hub where our night bus would arrive. Buses came and went, but each time we were told that they weren’t our buses. Syd and I were getting a bit nervous because our bus was already an hour late. I started to worry that maybe there was some confusion, and that our bus had actually left without us. A Swiss guy who was also waiting for a bus, and who had already been traveling for months, joked and told us that we were on “Vietnamese time.” I felt more at ease to learn that lateness wasn’t out of the ordinary. All we had to do was wait, and eventually it would come. After 2 hours, we were finally told to get onto a bus.
When boarding the bus, the driver held out plastic bags for everyone to wrap up their shoes. Shoes are not allowed on sleeper buses, and I eventually learned they needed to be taken off in many other places in Vietnam as well. People remove shoes before going into homes or temples, and even for small businesses like boutiques and clothing shops.
It was a swanky sleeper bus. Every passenger got their own pod with a curtain, there was a blanket, and you could fully lie down inside them. I was excited to be on the bus, but I struggled to actually sleep in it. I couldn’t get comfortable, and it didn’t help that the bus made frequent stops in different towns. I peered out my window during these stops and observed the bus staff getting on and off the bus to drop off and pick up items. I didn’t expect that the buses would have side hustles!
Every couple of hours, there were more official stops where passengers could get off to use the restroom and buy snacks. Each time there was a rest stop like this, a basket filled with rubber slippers would come out. I was confused at first, but then observed people ahead of me putting on the slippers. I then connected the dots that these were the outdoor slippers that we had to use since our shoes were in bags, so I slid my feet into the slippers, took my pee breaks, and then returned the slippers to the basket before hopping back onto the bus.
The first pee stop reminded me of a fact I had read about Vietnam before traveling — that squatting toilets were common, and that toilet paper wasn’t always available. Not used to this way of relieving myself yet, I did my best to squat over the toilet without losing my balance.
As time floated into the AMs I felt myself begin to doze, but then heard Sydney on the phone, in the pod across from mine, sounding concerned and confused. I drew my curtain as she hung up.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We have to get off the bus.”
“Wait, what?!”
“I don’t know, I don’t know!”
And with that, we were shuffled off. The staff grabbed our backpacks from the underbelly of the bus, and we were gestured to walk into a different one that was parked steps away. Tired, confused, and a bit delirious, we stumbled onto the new bus, which unfortunately wasn’t as nice as the one we’d just been on. It was essentially wired bunk beds throughout, and felt much more cramped. We were told to go to the back, since that was the only space left, and we laid down on the reclined sleepers. The bus began to move again and, finally, time caught up to us.
“So, what the hell just happened?” I asked.
“Dude — I. don’t. Know. I was handed a phone, and the guy on the other end, who I was struggling to understand, was telling me we were on the wrong bus and had to get on a different one.”
I started to laugh. It was our first bus ride in Vietnam, and we had been kicked off of it. It was a funny, albeit stressful, way to start things off and I knew that would certainly not be the first hiccup of the trip. I was laughed because I was relieved to have a friend by my side. If I had been on that bus alone, and told to get off, I surely would’ve panicked.
We eventually arrived in Ha Giang, and passengers were dropped off at various accommodations. As if the universe wanted to play a little more though, Sydney and I were the last people left on the bus because the driver didn’t know where our hostel was.
He called someone and went back and forth with them, and even handed me the phone at one point, but unfortunately me and the person on the other end could not understand each other. Eventually, with some more back and forth, and google maps, we pulled up to the hostel around 6am. The entire journey, which was only supposed to take about five and a half hours, ended up taking 9 (Vietnamese Time, am I right?)
Sydney and I debated whether to even bother sleeping, since we’d have to meet up with the motorcycle group in just a few hours. Time was ticking, and the hostel room smelled like feet, so the decision was made to stay up. Gradually, backpackers were waking up and filing into the main room. There, we started to meet some of the other travelers who we would be doing the loop with.
In the group there were people from Switzerland, Belgium, The Netherlands, Austria, and Canada. It was the first of many times that I recognized how privileged I was to be a native English speaker. We all communicated with one another in English, because it was the only common language that we all shared. I also found that English was the official traveler’s language. In tourist areas, there were menus in English, and some clerks would automatically greet you in English if they noticed you were a “Tây,” meaning “Westerner”.
While meeting the group, we were also introduced to our Easy Riders. When doing a tour of the Ha Giang Loop, you have two options: You can either rent a bike and ride it yourself, or you can hire an Easy Rider, a local who rides the bike with you on the back. I chose the Easy Rider option.
My rider’s name was Duc. He was 28, but had the shy and gentle demeanor of someone much younger. He spoke very little English, but we were able to have short conversations through gesticulations and google translate. Throughout the four days, I was moved by Duc’s kindness, and his effort to connect, despite our language barrier. I felt that Duc took his role seriously as the person who would be escorting me through the loop for the next few days.
He always handed me my helmet right before we were about to ride, and held his hands out to take it back whenever we made stops. He gave me little things, like lollipops and cups of tea, and offered me cigarettes (though I don’t smoke). Whenever we took shots with the group (more on that later) he would pour my glass and clink with me first. He communicated using the universal language: sharing.
It’s taken me many paragraphs to say this, but driving along the loop was breathtaking. Each day we rode through massive mountains packed with verdant trees and plant life. It was the end of the rainy season, but there were still days where the sky filled with fog and drizzles. On these days, we still rode, but we wore plastic pants and jackets over our clothing. Along the road we often saw villagers wearing traditional clothing doing things like farming, foraging, and herding. Vietnam recognizes over 50 ethnic minorities, and most of them live in the mountains of Northern and Central Vietnam.
In the evenings, after long days of riding through the mountains, we settled at homestays along the Loop. A homestay is basically an accommodation that a family runs and lives in. I later found that other businesses in Vietnam ran similarly. Whether it was a restaurant or mechanic, many doubled as living spaces. I recall first noticing this at an eatery when I used the restroom. There were several toothbrushes, some child-sized, on the shelf above the sink. I also saw clothes hanging to dry in the back of the property.
Many of the homestays were essentially just large rooms with a lot of beds inside — either on one level, or bunk-bed style. I found they were nicer than a hostel experience though because you got the added benefits of home-cooked meals, and the ability to hang out in the space like it was your living room. To add to the home vibe, they provided rubber slippers, in various sizes, for us to use when inside.
Dinners at the homestays were always lively. The group was always hungry after long days of riding, and the food was something we looked forward to at every stop. At most lunches and dinners, the same items would show up: a fried noodle dish, a soup or stew with pork or beef, a chicken dish, sauteed morning glory, crispy spring rolls with a soy-based dipping sauce, fried egg, a big pot of white rice, French fries (which we all thought was random, but also loved), and a, often tasteless, tofu dish for the vegetarians.
It was interesting to see so many of the same dishes show up because they were all made slightly differently depending on where you went — likely because family recipes differed. Some places really killed it with the flavors, and others were more bland. I ate out of tiny porcelain bowls with chopsticks, and refilled the little bowl as many times as it took to get full.
At dinners, the Easy Riders always brought out, what they call, in Vietnamese, “Happy Water,” a rice wine which is often homemade. We filled our small shot glasses — multiple times during the meal — and yelled, “Mot, Hai, Ba, YO!” (“1, 2, 3, Cheers!”) and clicked with everyone. Once dinner was done, it was karaoke time. I didn’t know it beforehand, but karaoke is very popular in Vietnam.
It took the group a little time to get into it, and some (including me) were afraid to sing. After getting over the fear though, and with the help of Happy Water, I got pretty into it. I heard songs in Vietnamese, French, German, Dutch, and English.
There was something so pure about being with a group of people all singing our favorite songs, many of which I’d never heard before, and cheering each other on while doing it. The best part of karaoke, which may be lost on some reading, is that you don’t have to sound like a professional singer to do it. I promise, the best performances were the ones who let go and sang with passion, regardless of how “good” they sounded.
After karaoke, those that were still awake would hang out. We’d play card games and shoot pool. Duc was ridiculously good at card games. One night I played on his team, and we won every round. Another feature of the evenings was that a large bamboo pipe for smoking tobacco would also come out, which the easy riders would puff and pass around.
I thought a lot about Duc and the other drivers, and wondered what their lives were like. I heard from another traveler that she had spoken to her rider via Google translate, and learned how grueling their weeks were. He told her he once went 60 days straight without a break, and said that it was difficult to have families or romantic relationships because of the nature of the job.
Not every driver would hang out in the evenings — some would go straight to bed after dinner. It was certainly an interesting lifestyle. Days were filled with driving through the same places and roads over and over again, making the same stops and eating at the same places, and then evenings spent with karaoke, drinking, and games. I wondered if one could get burnt out from it all — perhaps the ones who skipped the games already were.
One of the days, we stopped at a beautiful overlook near the border to China, and the lead Easy Rider asked if anyone wanted to visit a nearby village. We had to hike up a steep mountain in order to get there, and I was out of breath when we arrived. I saw a teenage girl tending to crops, small homes with tin roofs, clothes hanging outside to dry, and some chickens scampering around. I wondered about when these villagers had first settled there, and was amazed that they lived somewhere that was so difficult to get to. In places this remote, many do not have running water. While writing this piece, I learned that only 34.8% of people living in rural Vietnam have access to clean water. (The number is 84.2% in urban areas.)
It was a profound experience to get a glimpse into how people lived in the small mountain towns and villagers we passed through, but I also questioned whether our presence was a disruptive one. I wondered if local people were bothered that their main road had become a tourist attraction, and certainly more trafficked than years prior. At the same time, tourists brought in money. We ate at local restaurants, and stayed at homestays. Being an easy rider had also become a path for local men to make money.
I also saw many young, sometimes very young, children walking by themselves. Many excitedly waved and shouted “hello!” as we sped by, and some even held out their hands for high fives. This filled my heart with joy. I recall during one of our stops that there were little girls running up to my and other tour groups, and asking to braid our hair. I watched them braid the hair of tourists who had agreed, and then hold out their small hands waiting for money. My heart ached watching these children. I wondered if they went to that stop every day knowing tourists would be there. It’s impossible for tourism to not change a place, and I wonder how much more developed the loop will become as the years roll on. I saw it in the midst of change, and I imagine that will only continue.
On the final day, it was emotional to say goodbye to the group, and to the drivers. Although we had only known one another for four days, the time felt significant. We had spent long days and fun nights together. We had shared all of our meals at the same table, and learned about each other’s lives. We had marveled at the beauty of where we were. We all agreed that our asses were sore at the end of the day, and sometimes we were damp from being rained on, but then woke up excited to do it all over again the next day.
The end of the loop also marked the end of my first phase of traveling. After this, Sydney and I would split up to different cities, and we’d meet back up a few weeks later. My next stop was Ho Chi Minh.
Alright, that’s all for now folks!! Hope you enjoyed this first installment of my trip. It’s so hard to distill everything, but hopefully this provided a fun glimpse into it. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to write about every week of the trip, or what I’ll include and what I’ll leave out, so you’ll just have to stay tuned. Love you all ❤
Read: Part II
