Last October, Emma and I embarked on an amazing adventure throughout Southeast Asia. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting stories from the trip based off journal notes and photographs.
Part 2: A Comprehensive Review of QT Tours
Northern Vietnam - Hà Giang Province
At first, it felt thrilling. Clutching the tiny plastic handles on the back of the motorbike, I watched in awe as my driver tore through the dense traffic of Hà Giang. The growl of our little bike engine was peppered with incessant honking, warning anyone near to get out of the way. Whenever the driver saw even the smallest gap between traffic, he’d gun the throttle with such ferocity that it took all of my strength to hold on and not get thrown off the bike. Soon, we had left the city center, the traffic thinned, and the roads began to narrow and steepened as we entered the countryside. It wasn’t long before things stopped being fun.
The Hà Giang loop is a famous motorbike loop that weaves through the mountains on the border of Vietnam and China. An incredible mountainous landscape dotted with little villages, the area hosts an incredibly diverse population with over 40 unique ethnic groups with their own language, traditions and subculture living in this small northern province. The motorcycle loop had garnered a reputation as a must do adventure and had come highly recommended to us by a friend back home.
The official Hà Giang loop uniform.
Our drivers, happy to have ended the day without killing anyone.
We had been emphatically told by the hostel owner in Cát Bà that we should not do the trip ourselves and recommended we join a tour group. So after a little bit of research, we booked two seats with QT Adventures and excitedly prepared to head north.
After an awful 12 hour night bus ride (which could be its own blog post), we were dropped off at 4am at QT Tours’ headquarters in Hà Giang city and shuffled into a crowded dorm room with mats scattered on the floor. There were bodies everywhere and mold in the bathroom, but we did manage a few hours of restless sleep. The next morning, as we were having breakfast, I turned to Emma and said “Is it just me or are there a ton of wounded people here?” The room was packed with people either getting ready to leave or returning from a tour and looking around we noticed a few people on crutches, a few with their arms in a sling, and lots of folks with bandages. Looking back, it should have been our first clue to get the hell out of there.
A few hours later, Emma and I, wearing the provided rain gear that I can only describe as pink garbage bag ponchos, were sitting on the back of motorbikes driven by drivers who barely seemed to notice us. After our thrilling ride out of the city, things got bad quick.
Motoring up switchbacks up a steep mountain side, we rounded a hairpin turn when the bike in front of us, driven by a guide, suddenly washed out, throwing the passenger onto the pavement. I watched in shock as the guide picked up his bike and yelled at his passenger to get back on without so much as a second to check for injuries. None of the other guides slowed down and we continued barreling up the mountains. It was at that moment that I knew anything could happen. No one was safe.
Our drivers seemed to be motivated by one thing only: to pass as many vehicles as possible. On narrow, cliff sided roads, through blind corners, or in quiet villages with children running around, our drivers would pass trucks, buses, or other tour groups with 30+ bikes at 70 to 90 km/h. By the time we would arrive at our homestay in the evening, my jaw would ache from all the clenching and my fingers were numb from death gripping the bike.
This debacle continued for three long days. Our stops included innumerable visits to techno blaring coffee stands, a short visit to a historic monument where Emma and I were left behind, and viewpoints (often obscured by fog) filled with drunk twenty-somethings aimlessly milling about trying to take selfies. On our last day, we were left stranded on the top of a mountain in a dilapidated hostel under construction with the lead guide demanding we leave a good review.
Roadside art.
This concludes my comprehensive review of QT Tours. Not convinced? Read my tripadvisor report.
