8 Days Riding Solo on Vietnam’s Hardest Mountain Road

My heart is racing. I am super excited to be on the road, and, am I afraid? I don't know. What I am about to do would have sounded impossible for me three years ago. Since then I have done many things I didn’t imagine, but this is a new level. I am about to cycle some notoriously steep roads through the remotest parts of Vietnam, just shy of the border with China, alone! Mathias hurt his knee, and this gives us or me an opportunity to do a solo tour, and now I'm going to try to cycle the Ha Giang loop. However, the exceptional beauty of this landscape comes at a price. Even on a motorcycle, the 290km long loop is challenging. I of course will do it on my fully loaded touring bicycle. This is nuts, mainly because of one number: 2600! Specifically, 2600 meters of climb per 100 kms of road.

To put that into perspective: In loaded touring, 1500 to 2000 metres are considered mountainous, like in proper mountains. Anything over 2000 metres is extreme. So, at 2600 metres, you are basically either grinding up a steep pass or descending steep switchbacks with your hands clamped to the brakes. That brutal terrain is probably why this region is not only remote, but also populated by the impressive number of at least 43 ethnic minorities, each with their own language, traditions and culture. There is a lot to discover… So welcome to the Amazing World Bike Tour with me… I'm not sure if I'm this happy because I am just on the road on my bike again, or because I'm doing something for the first time in my life: Going on a solo tour in the mountains of Northern Vietnam. You see, I didn’t even know how to ride a bicycle until I was in my twenties. I was still far from confident on a bicycle when I started this journey with my husband.

Since then we have cycled roughly 18,000 kms from Germany to here. Plenty of mountains, but always, and I mean always, together. With Mathias' injury, we went through our options. I’ve been looking forward to this particular road for a while. Skipping the Ha Giang was ruled out immediately. Do it by motorcycle like everyone else? Or could he accompany me on a motorcycle while I ride my bicycle? Silly. When he suggested that I should do it alone, it sounded scary, but also intriguing. I feel strange that he is not with me, even slightly anxious, but riding solo is also something I wanted to prove to myself for a while, and it is very… Exciting! Refreshing! Leaving the provincial capital behind, hundreds of thoughts rush through my mind. This feels so different, so new. I am a bit high on adrenaline. Suddenly I am 100% responsible for every second, every tiny aspect of the journey. I am the captain now… No discussion, no compromise whatsoever.

I like the sound of that! Other than that, I make good progress, and after the first day, I am already deep into the loop. Riding alone, I do less breaks and shorter ones too. The landscape, the humid heat, and the steep roads are breathtaking. I see women working the fields or walking on the side of the road. A lot of walking. I feel like I am diving into another world. Like time flows differently through the mountains and their residents. They do things at their own pace, almost untouched, seemingly oblivious to the wider world around them. Whatever they do, they do it thoughtfully and calmly. The atmosphere is peaceful and quiet. Only rarely does a local rattle through the valley on a rickety old motorbike. I get a sense of detachment from the world, or at least my world. On day two, I decide to explore the village of Lung Tam. I visit a local cooperative, a traditional H’Mông textile workshop.

They work with linen made from hemp. I’ve seen countless women twisting fibre into thread as they casually go about their errands. Today in the workshop we see the following step: spinning the threads into yarn. It’s the fabric of the region. Hemp grows well in the rocky karst soil, making it a reliable local crop where other fibers struggle. As a textile, it also suits the mountain climate practically. It breathes well in high humidity, dries faster than cotton, and provides decent insulation during cold winter damp. The fibers are exceptionally durable, resisting heavy friction from farm work while naturally warding off mold, a huge problem in the wet highlands. This artisan dips a slender pen, tipped with copper, into molten beeswax. With steady strokes, she guides the metal blade across the cloth. It seems like she is meditating. No stencils. No pencil marks. Just decades of experience, guiding the traditional patterns, sealing the raw weave with hot wax.

To the Hmong people, this isn't just a souvenir. It's a second skin. It’s what they wear to marry, and it’s the only cloth they believe their ancestors will recognize when they pass into the next life. Over the next few weeks, the fabric will undergo dozens of cold dips in fermented indigo. It will be soaked briefly, then hung to dry and oxidize in the mountain air, repeating the cycle day after day until the fibers turn a deep, dark blue. Only at the very end, in a cauldron of boiling water, will the wax melt away, releasing the motifs, clean and brilliant against the dark indigo field. I’m impressed by her patience, precision, and thought behind every line. Even though I am mesmerised, I have to leave, as I have many kms and climbs ahead of me. It’s the middle of the rainy season. Every now and then, I come across stretches of road covered in mud and rocks. Two weeks earlier, the region had been hit by the heaviest rainfalls on record. It poured non-stop for days on end; the rivers burst their banks, causing numerous landslides and flooding houses and roads.

Traffic was disrupted for several days. The nature is incredibly lush and green. So much green! My tour is going well. I have the feeling when I was cycling with Mathias, most people would just look at us whenever we had eye contact, they would greet us and smile. And now, now it's different, especially with men. They either try not to look at me, or if they do, they look with wide open eyes, and I'm not sure how to interpret that. Is it because I'm a foreign woman alone, or is it because I'm traveling alone on my bicycle? Maybe they are shocked to see me, or yeah, but it's interesting to see that.

It feels drastically different, and I am not quite sure if I like that part of riding solo. It's pretty humid and hot. I'm sweating a lot. Oh! Ha ha! And I'm getting a little bit bored from all these ups and downs. I can feel my legs. And, yeah. Blah blah blah. Oh! Oh, not again. Finally, a place to arrive and a friendly “Hello.” Hello.

And again, I am the strange lady on a bicycle, filming herself while having a modest lunch. I would have loved a soup, really any soup, but the choice was between crisps and candies. The Ha Giang loop is a very popular motorcycle journey. For a small fee, experienced local riders take travellers from all over the world on the back of their motorcycles. They rush past me and rarely stop between the most spectacular viewpoints. Riding a bicycle, I am clearly the odd one out. But we all give our best anyway. These kids were just helping me and pushing my bike up. Girl power. Later in the afternoon, the peace and quietness is suddenly over. I climbed a lot, as I found this “Cloud Cafe and Camping” on Google Maps, so I thought okay, I can camp here easily and also use their facilities for a shower.

But right now there are a lot of guests in the cafe, all of them tourists from all over the world that are doing a motorbike tour here. Well, the view is very beautiful and I think I am going to camp here. Let’s see when it will get quieter. I think the bar closes after 17:30, so I guess there will be no guests and I can enjoy this place for myself. Me being completely on my own means I can take any decision I want, at any time. This also means I can’t shy away from tasks I don’t like or I am just not any good at anymore. Suddenly I have to take care of everything. Do I like that? I don’t know, but I have plenty of time to find out. For several years we did everything together, shared responsibilities and watched after each other.

It may be difficult to compromise, but through that wealth of shared experience, we give each other reassurance just by our presence. For my first night outside alone, these two curious little girls give me some strength. Good morning. So, it’s been raining a lot during the night, and I couldn’t fall asleep as early as I wanted, so I feel very tired. It was very loud because of the raindrops, and I was a little bit worried anyway, because I was alone in the tent for the first time. But yeah… all in all, it wasn’t a great night. I think I slept just four to five hours.

Right now, I’m considering whether to do the big climb today or maybe tomorrow. It’s very cloudy, and there are still light showers, so I’m not sure I’d be able to see anything even if I climbed that high. Maybe I’ll just go downhill, find a room in the next town, rest today, wait until the weather clears, and continue tomorrow. I’ll see. So now I’m in Yen Minh. I did a lot of downhill, and it doesn’t look like the rain is going to stop, so I guess I’ll find a place to stay for the day, and hopefully I can continue tomorrow.

But don’t get me wrong, it’s actually really nice for cycling. It would be amazing to cycle in weather like this… just not on the section I’m planning to ride tomorrow, because the whole point is the view. And yeah, everything is covered in clouds, so I can’t see anything today. I don’t think it’s worth the effort to cycle 1,000 metres uphill and not see anything. Right after this village starts a massive 20km long climb. Even though the sun breaks through for some moments, heavy rainfall is predicted for the afternoon. I packed my tent wet and I am tired. I decide to rest in this village, observe the local life, and be the lonely awkward alien in the eatery. Here – can I sit here? Thank you!

So I'm going to have dinner here. I ordered the plate that the lady is having… Thank you! Everyone is looking at me. What am I doing? Why am I filming? It’s incredible to me how much I don’t – but in another way somehow do – understand the locals. They speak so many local languages and dialects that my translation apps are completely useless. I have countless questions I would love to ask them, but I have to settle with a few food tips and the quiet exchange of smiles and gestures. Luckily I found a place to stay for the night.

I booked one bed in a three-bed dormitory, but there’s basically nobody here, so I guess I have the room to myself. I’m paying 4€ for the night, and breakfast is also included. So I think it was a good decision to stay here, to recharge everything, and be really ready for the big climb tomorrow. I checked the route and worked out how many days I’ll need. It turns out I’ll need five days to complete the loop, and every day I’ll have at least 1,000 metres of elevation gain. So tomorrow won’t be the only difficult day, but it is the one with the most concentrated climb and the most epic views. The next morning I am well rested. My legs feel fresh! Time to leave the comfortable hostel behind. I am not sure where I will end up today. First I have to climb to roughly 1500 metres, which will take a while. It's still cloudy, but I can see that the sun will shine very soon.

So I hope I will have a nice view in maybe at least one hour. To be fair, the view is beautiful right away. Right out of Yen Minh starts a very steep stretch. I pass by women who are walking up the street and into the steep corn fields. A lot of the women I see are twisting hemp fibres together. Their hands look very rough. And every now and then it gets very loud… Yeah, I'm sweating a lot, the climbs are difficult, the weather is not the best, and there is a lot of traffic.

Yeah, I don't know. I'll see how I can do my best to take some shots to make it possible for you to see how this is going. Today I am being passed by an incredible amount of motorcycles. It makes me feel like the region is very touristic. In a way it is, but at the same time, each motorcycle carries only one traveller. Just because I am so slow in the climbs, I get to see each and every one of them. There you go again: Hour after hour the road is twisting and twisting… As I climb the narrow valley, the clouds rolling in get thicker and darker. Have I wished to be on one of those motorbikes? To just fly up the road instead of cycling every metre, feeling the might of this nature?

Hi! Hello! You probably won’t believe it… but not for a second. Hello. Hello! Coffee! Thank you. However, I would prefer to see, hear and smell less motorcycles as they break my flow. Around 10:30 am I reach this group of market stalls. And to be fair, this wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the groups on motorcycles passing me all day. Anyone in a plastic rain poncho is either a rider or a tourist. There are barely any formal jobs in these mountains, so it is very difficult to earn cash. As a community, they do their best to make this place a worthwhile stop along the loop. Every piece of fruit, snack or souvenir they sell to travellers is a net benefit for them. What a misjudgment of the weather on my part.

Yesterday I didn’t cycle because I didn’t want to miss the view. But one thing is good: I really like rain. I like spending time outside when it’s raining. And I have to say, slowly I’m getting into solo-travel mode. When I started the trip, I was physically alone, but I was still following our routines, and Mathias was in my head. Finally, in small details, I’m feeling the difference. In many ways, it’s much easier to be on the road with a partner. Even the filming… because I really like filming, and I always used Mathias as the main character while I just filmed. It felt more authentic, especially with interactions with locals: it’s easier when one person focuses on the conversation, and I could be a bit invisible and just film.

Now, because people are more focused on me, it feels strange to take out the camera and film. It makes everything a little more complicated. And maybe the interaction isn’t quite as authentic anymore, because they feel the presence of the camera much more. Yeah. Roughly an hour later, it’s just pouring. The weather is not on my side currently. But I was lucky enough to find this massive roof of a restaurant for shelter. Unfortunately, the restaurant seems long closed. I need to get going again. Cycling with the plastic poncho on is not pleasant, especially going uphill.

It’s either getting soaked by rain, or soaked by sweat. Fortunately the rain stops soon after. I eat a Choco Pie to get me to the next restaurant. I guess I can finally have lunch. This is also one of those things: if I were with Mathias, we would’ve had lunch hours ago. Usually I forget about food until I have no energy left, but today I was good – I ate a chocolate before. And now, in this town, I hope I can find something I actually want to eat. Spring onions! I love them! Guess I’ll eat here. Lunchtime is over, as always – I’m too late. But the lady was very nice, and I can still have bun cha, which is a noodle soup with meatballs.

Oh, thank you! And I asked her if I could have some garlic. She brought garlic and some soy sauce. Nice. I’m not a big fan of bamboo, and I’m having difficulties with food in Southeast Asia, but fortunately, they have… whatever. I’m too tired – I’m just going to eat. Now you know why Mathias usually does a majority of the talking in front of the camera. Although in my defence, I’ve just climbed an impressive number of metres. 1100 metres of vertical climb and 23 kms between 8am and 2pm, to be exact.

Of all the climbs on the Ha Giang loop, this was probably the toughest one. I'm now in the northernmost part of Vietnam. To my left, about 1 to 5 kms away lies China. There we’ll go next, but first I need to finish this. We’ll link a map in the description below. My take on the Ha Giang loop is 290 kms with a staggering 7500 meters of elevation gain. I just reached the highest points on the Đồng Văn Karst Plateau at around 1500 metres. This landscape is defined by hundreds of millions of years of marine sedimentation, tectonic collision, and tropical weathering. So I reached the point I’d planned to reach today, but then I decided to go further.

Now I’m hoping to reach the town of Dong Van. It’s getting pretty late, about an hour before sunset. One of my brakes isn’t working very well, so that’s a problem: downhills and uphills ahead. Yeah… Enjoy this amazing view. I enjoyed it a lot; I couldn’t film it a lot. If I manage to get to the town, I’ll have done over 1,600 metres of elevation today. The extreme verticality of the terrain is a direct consequence of plate tectonics. As the Indian and Eurasian plates collided, the brittle carbonate platforms fractured vertically rather than warping into rolling hills.

Elevated into a high-altitude monsoon environment, the rock underwent aggressive karstification. That is why this stark terrain is also a unique cultural landscape. As fractured karst is intensely porous, rainfall drains instantly into subterranean networks, leaving the surface with little topsoil. Over centuries, indigenous communities have adapted through rock-pocket farming. With arable land being rare, farmers carry baskets of soil up the slopes to fill small fissures between jagged boulders, cultivating crops directly inside the bedrock. Shortly after sunset, I manage to reach the district capital Dong Van. Fortunately, Mathias had already looked up accommodation options and sent me a location. How are you? Tired! Okay? What kind of rooms do you have? Okay. One room? Yes?! I was very lucky to have reached this town on a Saturday evening. That is because every Sunday morning long before dawn, footpaths leading out of isolated hamlets fill with people walking tens of kilometers. Once a week, Đồng Văn transforms into this dense, sprawling place for everything.

The crowd is overwhelming. The women of the various minorities, chiefly H'mông, Dao, and Lô Lô, are wearing layered, hand-embroidered garments in saturated shades of magenta, cobalt, and pink. Interspersed with the produce are street cobblers with hand-cranked stitchers, and musicians demonstrating hand-carved bamboo flutes alongside traditional reed pipes. I feel transported into another world and time… But when I see her in her traditional dress, I wonder if she is scrolling her insta feed? Surreal! The inventory spans local craft and cross-border trade: hand-bound grass brooms, coarse hemp, and traditional textiles sit stacked beside bright plastic stools, thermoses, and hardware brought down from Yunnan, China.

The noise and smell shifts towards the livestock exchange. Here, farmers negotiate over cattle, native chickens, and litters of black pigs. Dogs are traded openly alongside other animals. They might get used as guard dogs on remote mountain homesteads, but also be butchered as table meat without sentimentality. It is an unvarnished economic hub: a weekly cross-section of mountain life where ancient trade practices, regional dietary realities, and cheap modern plastic meet. Overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle, I escape by taking an unloaded ride out of Đồng Văn. I cut toward the Chinese border along narrow concrete tracks that contour the karst ridges north of the town. After 7 kms, I run into some old trees. Outside Thiên Hương stands this centuries-old banyan grove. These massive trees are estimated at over five to seven hundred years.

To the local Tày community, the grove is a protected sanctuary of the forest spirit, guarding their village. 1000 metres down and across lays an intriguing border: China. Vietnam. The next day, I ride out of Dong Van to the southwest towards Meo Vac. China has to wait for now. I am half way through the loop. I still need to ride back to Ha Giang and check on Mathias’ injured knee. After two short but sharp inclinations, the view widens in a spectacular fashion. When tectonic uplift elevated the plateau, local rivers cut violently downward, carving some of the deepest river canyons in Southeast Asia. A prime example is the Sông Nho Quế, which sliced through the limestone massif to form the Tu San Canyon.

Here, near-vertical rock cliffs soar 700 to 900 meters straight out of the water. I keep pedalling, between sweeping mountains and clouds, locals carrying ridiculous loads on motorbikes, kids jumping on harvested corn, women twisting hemp.

I’m in awe of the world around me. After a deserved ice break in Meo Vac, I turn west leaving Highway 4C. It's the fifth day of me cycling the Ha Giang Loop. And I was actually mistaken when I said that the other pass was the most difficult cycling day, because today I have a very tough day. Two climbs… fortunately there are some clouds now, but before there was only sun, and it was very hot.

The roads are very steep, physically pretty demanding. So luckily there are locals and kids like this on the road. I’ve already developed a habit of talking to myself. It’s good that people greet me and I can have some interactions that help me not be stuck in my own thoughts.

If everything goes as I planned, I will maybe spend a night in a restaurant, if they allow me to camp there. And tomorrow I will be back in Ha Giang. Well, not really, but in the meantime I see a lot of corn drying on the side of the road. Like for the rice in the rest of Vietnam, they utilize these dark blue and orange plastic tarps. Around the highest point of the day, at 1300 metres, the road gets better. I already did 1000 metres up and down vertically today and am tired.

The road smoothes out, and I am in for a real treat: 950 metres of descent and barely any climb over the following 15 kilometres. I can enjoy the breeze and the landscape getting more spectacular again. At snake pass I meet some drone pilots. After spending the night in Mau Due, I did not film the following day.

Yesterday was supposed to be this super difficult day with two climbs. I stopped after the first climb because my ankle was hurting, and yeah, I wasn’t feeling well in general. Maybe I had pushed it too hard on the first climb, over 1000 metres in 12 kms. Cycling the Hà Giang Loop has been unforgettable and humbling. There is the physical part: the combination of heat, humidity, and endless steep ups and downs. My hands are hurting from the braking. But beyond that, this region is among Vietnam’s poorest and most isolated provinces. Hà Giang contains some of the country’s most difficult-to-access districts, with poverty rates far above the national average, especially among ethnic minority communities. My last day on the Ha Giang Loop was tough. Today I had two climbs, and now I’m on the final climb towards Ha Giang.

It strikes me how far removed this world is from the one we know. There are no traffic lights, no buildings with gothic architecture, no fancy supermarkets, no machines, no robot vacuum cleaners or dishwashers, just steep climbs, quiet roads, and the daily chores of the locals: barefoot children help with livestock, families work in the fields, and women spin and weave hemp cloth by hand. Yeah, I almost made it. In one hour I’ll be with Mathias again, which makes me very happy. At the beginning, I didn’t enjoy the journey as much. And then it was okay – I learned to be alone, and I started to enjoy being by myself and making my own decisions. But now I’m also very happy to be almost back, because I really missed Mathias. Now I have 15 kilometres to Ha Giang, but no big climbs anymore.

So see you from Ha Giang. After 8 solo days on the loop, with 6 full cycling days, I can say that I am a little proud of myself. I am really glad to have had this experience. I felt like I was in a different world a lot of the time. And of course, the beauty of the landscape is quite something. And while it’s remarkable to have explored this remote region all by myself, it’s just very different when we share it together. Woohoo! Made it back. I'm almost in the town. So let's call Mathias. I hope he missed me as well! Anyway, thank you so much for watching.

Where are you? So nice. Ah… Sweaty and smelly. Brutal! We smell like this? This is bad! This is how we smell normally, but we don't realise it, because we are both like that. Awesome! Until next time, and may the wind be at your back!