The Road Less Traveled: Slow Journeys Through Northern Vietnam

North of Hanoi the road stops being a way to get somewhere and becomes the thing itself. The passes climb, the villages thin out, and the distance between meals grows to the point where you plan the day around them.

Take the long way to Ha Giang

The direct route is a night bus and six hours of sleep. The long way is three days, two stops and a mountain road that switchbacks for most of an afternoon. There is no argument for the long way except that it is the reason to come, which is argument enough.

Go outside the summer months if you can. The rain makes some of the road impassable and all of it slower, and the terraces are at their best either side of the harvest.

Markets run on their own calendar

Most of the mountain markets meet weekly, and the day rotates by village. Get the schedule wrong and you arrive at an empty field. Get it right and you land in the middle of the only event for thirty kilometres — livestock at one end, textiles at the other, and a row of stalls in between serving one dish each.

Guesthouses keep the schedule in their heads. Ask the night before rather than the morning of, because the good ones start before dawn.

Stay in the valley, not the town

The towns have the hotels and the buses. The valleys have the reason you came. Homestays run about a third of the price, include two meals cooked by whoever owns the house, and put you within walking distance of the terraces at the hour when the light is worth the trip.