Ha Giang Loop

Day one follows QL4C north out of Ha Giang up a river valley, then starts climbing in earnest at Bac Sum Pass, about 28 km in. These are the first real hairpins of the loop, and the place where nervous beginners find out whether this was a good idea. Take them slowly, keep well to the right and let the trucks go.

Sixteen kilometres further on is the Quan Ba Heaven Gate, a notch in the ridge with a viewpoint over Tam Son town and the two neat, rounded hills known as the Twin Mountains. Tam Son, 48 km from Ha Giang, is the natural lunch and fuel stop. Beyond it the road drops to the river at Can Ty, climbs again through pine forest, and makes a long descent into Yen Minh – a plain but useful valley town with fuel, food and plenty of beds.

This is also the stretch where papers are most often checked. Minh Tan, the commune around Bac Sum, is where the province began its 2026 round of document checks on foreign visitors, and police have long stopped riders on the way out of Ha Giang and around Quan Ba. Keep passport, licence and permit where you can reach them without unpacking.

The shortest day on the map is short on purpose. This is where the stone plateau proper begins, and there is a reason to stop every few kilometres. From Yen Minh the road climbs Tham Ma Pass, a tidy stack of switchbacks best seen from the top, then Chin Khoanh ("nine bends") Pass, before dropping into the Sung La valley, where the hamlet of Lung Cam keeps a cluster of old earth-walled Hmong houses.

A few kilometres on, a short side road at Sa Phin leads to the Vuong family mansion, the early-20th-century stronghold of the Hmong lords who once ran this corner of the country (entry is about 30,000 VND, roughly US$1). From there QL4C winds across bare grey limestone – the "rock desert" the geopark is known for – to Dong Van, at a little over 1,000 m.

Dong Van is the best town on the loop for an afternoon on foot: a short old quarter of tiled, century-old houses, a ruined French fort on the hill above for sunset, and on Sunday mornings one of the liveliest markets in the north. Arriving by early afternoon also leaves time for the Lung Cu flag tower – see the alternative below.

This is the day people come for. Leaving Dong Van, QL4C becomes the Ma Pi Leng Pass: about 20 km of road cut into the cliffs, and the hardest section of the "Happiness Road" that thousands of young volunteers built, largely by hand, between 1959 and 1965. Far below, the Nho Que River runs through Tu San canyon. There are several safe pull-ins and a main viewpoint near the top; use them rather than stopping on the road itself. The narrow concrete track known as the Sky Path is for walking, not riding.

The road then drops to Meo Vac, 22 km from Dong Van, a market town in a bowl of peaks and the last dependable place for fuel, cash and a proper lunch. Turn west here on the road most maps call DT176 (a few say DT182). It is good tarmac as far as a much-photographed set of M-shaped bends 10–15 km out of town, and mostly reasonable from there to Mau Due, 35 km from Meo Vac.

From Mau Due the route leaves the main circuit and becomes noticeably rougher and emptier: a narrow road over the hills past Lung Ho, with broken patches, gravel and the odd stretch of roadworks, before it drops into the green bowl of Du Gia. Reports on the surface change from year to year – parts were rebuilt in 2023–24 – so ask in Meo Vac before committing, allow more time than the distance suggests, and do not attempt it after dark or in heavy rain.

Du Gia rewards a slow start. The valley is at its best early, and the waterfall a few kilometres from the village has a swimming hole that is glorious in summer and strictly a spectator sport in February.

The way home runs south on DT176 through Minh Son: a single strip of tarmac through forest and small villages, with very little traffic, some potholes and plenty of blind corners. After about 37 km it meets QL34 near Minh Ngoc, and from there it is roughly 30 km of wide, well-surfaced highway west into Ha Giang.

It is a short day by design. You will be tired, the bike has to go back, and the afternoon and night buses to Hanoi leave from town. Accidents tend to happen when people are either rushing or relaxing, so give the last 68 km the same attention as the first.