Ha Giang, and the Ma Pi Leng
A limestone plateau on the Chinese border with a road cut into a cliff above the Nho Que river. Three or four days, a border permit, and the reason we stopped recommending Sapa.
What Ha Giang actually is
Ha Giang is the northernmost province of Vietnam, pressed against the Chinese border, and the top third of it is a limestone plateau that UNESCO listed as a Global Geopark in 2010. The rock is grey karst pushed into cones and blades, the soil between them is thin and red, and maize grows in pockets of it that people carry up by hand.
The road is the reason to come. The QL4C runs 350 kilometres from Ha Giang town up through Quan Ba, Yen Minh, Dong Van and Meo Vac, and the 24-kilometre stretch between Dong Van and Meo Vac — the Ma Pi Leng — is cut into a cliff 800 metres above the Nho Que river. It was built between 1959 and 1965, largely by hand, by workers from sixteen ethnic groups, and several died doing it. Standing on it is not like standing on a scenic road elsewhere.
The second reason is the people. This is the most ethnically varied part of Vietnam: Hmong in several subgroups, Tay, Dao, Lo Lo, Giay, Pu Peo. Sunday markets at Dong Van and Meo Vac are trading markets where livestock changes hands, not craft markets, and they are the real thing in a way that nothing near Sapa now is.
How many days, and why three is the floor
Three nights is the minimum that works: one to get there, one on the plateau, one to come back. Four is considerably better because it lets you sleep two nights up on the plateau at Dong Van rather than driving back to Ha Giang town on the third evening after seven hours of switchbacks.
Two nights is a mistake people make and regret. Ha Giang town is six hours from Hanoi and the plateau is another five hours beyond it; a two-night trip is twenty-two hours in a vehicle for one afternoon of landscape.
If you want the Sunday market at Dong Van or Meo Vac, that constrains your dates, and it is worth constraining them for.
The permit almost nobody mentions
The Dong Van plateau sits in a restricted border zone. Foreign passport holders need a permit, obtained in Ha Giang town, costing a few dollars and taking about an hour. It is routine and it is also routinely forgotten by independent travellers, who get turned back at a checkpoint north of Yen Minh. We arrange it before you arrive.
Bring your passport rather than a copy. Some checkpoints want to see the original, and the permit is issued against the passport number.
When to go
| Months | What it is like |
|---|---|
| September to November | The best window. Rice terraces gold in September, buckwheat flowering pink in October and early November, clear air, 15 to 25 degrees. |
| December to February | Cold. Regularly 3 to 8 degrees on the plateau, occasionally freezing, with heavy fog that removes the view entirely for days at a time. |
| March to May | The second window. Plum and pear blossom in March, warming, generally clear. |
| June to August | Wet. Landslides close sections of the QL4C most summers, sometimes for days. The landscape is at its greenest and the risk of losing a day to a blocked road is real. |
The single worst combination is January fog, which can sit on the plateau for a week and reduce the Ma Pi Leng to a wall of white.
How to get there
There is no airport and no railway. Ha Giang town is six hours from Hanoi by road on the QL2, a route that has improved a great deal in five years and is still six hours. Sleeper buses run overnight and we do not use them for this route, because arriving at 04:00 in a cold mountain town is a bad start.
From Ha Giang town, the plateau begins about two hours north at the Quan Ba pass. Dong Van is five to five and a half hours from the town, and Meo Vac another hour and a half beyond that over the Ma Pi Leng.
The roads are paved and in reasonable condition. They are also relentlessly winding, and anyone prone to motion sickness should take this seriously: days four and five of our fourteen-day Vietnam route total about twelve hours of switchbacks.
What things cost
| Simple guesthouse, Dong Van, double | USD 18 - 35 |
| Comfortable hotel or lodge, double | USD 45 - 90 |
| The best rooms on the plateau | USD 100 - 160 |
| Meal in a local restaurant | USD 3 - 6 |
| Border-area permit | About USD 4 |
| Nho Que river boat, per person | USD 5 - 8 |
| Vuong family mansion entry | USD 1 |
| Car and driver from Hanoi, per day | USD 90 - 130 |
Photographs
When to skip Ha Giang
- If anyone in your party gets carsick. There is no flat route and no short version.
- If you are travelling in June, July or August and cannot absorb a lost day to a landslide.
- If you have fewer than twelve days in Vietnam. Ha Giang costs three to four of them and something else has to go.
- If you want comfort at night. The best accommodation on the plateau is decent, and it is not what the same money buys in Hoi An.
- If January is your only option. Fog can take the entire thing away and there is no refund for weather.
Ha Giang or Sapa
Sapa was the answer to this question until about 2015. It has since been comprehensively built over: the town centre is a construction site of concrete hotels, a cable car runs up Fansipan, and the valley walks that made its reputation now carry a great deal of foot traffic and a great many people selling embroidery.
Ha Giang is three hours further from Hanoi and one day longer, and it is what Sapa was. The landscape is bigger, the road is better, the markets are working markets, and there is no cable car. We offer Sapa as a swap on our Vietnam route because some people have limited days, and we tell them what they are choosing.
Tours that include Ha Giang
Ha Giang gets three nights in our fourteen-day Vietnam route, which is built around it. It does not appear in the multi-country routes, because there is no honest way to fit a four-day mountain detour into a trip that also crosses two borders.
If Ha Giang is the reason you are coming, do Vietnam on its own and add Cambodia another year.
Questions travellers ask most
Can I do the Ha Giang loop by motorbike?
Many people do, and a significant number of them crash. The road is winding, wet in patches, and shared with trucks; most travel insurance excludes motorbike riding without the correct licence.
We drive it. If riding is the point of the trip for you, we are the wrong operator.
Are the market days worth planning around?
Yes. Dong Van market is Sunday morning and Meo Vac market is Sunday too, starting before six. They are livestock and produce markets where actual trade happens.
If your dates can flex by a day or two to catch one, they should.
How high is it and does altitude matter?
The plateau sits between 1,000 and 1,600 metres. That is high enough to be genuinely cold in winter and not high enough for altitude to be a health issue for anyone.
Is the Nho Que boat trip worth it?
Yes, and it is short — about an hour through the Tu San gorge, which is the deepest in Southeast Asia. It also gives you the Ma Pi Leng from below, which is a completely different thing from the road above.
The access road down to the jetty is steep and rough. In heavy rain it closes.
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