previously on the Ha Giang Loop
we joined onto the loop from the east and made our way to an absolutely gorgeous scenic town called
Meo Vac it keeps going it keeps going oh and then it flattens out the roads were twisty
and the mountains were luscious and green and we found one of the most spectacular sunset
spots on planet earth he's just sat there on that bloody thing no chance so strap in and sit down
as we enjoy another day on this magnificent loop and get ready to be absolutely blown
away as we uncover even more magnificent scenes on day two here on the hijuang loop
so
good morning seven o'clock bright and early here today on the hijuang loop
at 4 30 in the morning the sun rose it's a lot earlier than other parts of asia and so
i've just gotten up and we've just driven to this monument here and we're going to start
day two of the loop but there's a very interesting path that we're going to be taking we're not going
to take this which is the actual hijang loop um for the first hour or two gonna be doing
a much more interesting and probably dangerous route i'll show you what i'm talking about now
so what you want to look for is this coffee shop now don't worry as always i'll put the
google map links in the description and this is just one of the turning points to get off the
hijung loop and get onto some of the ancient walking paths obviously way before they built
these main roads the local hmong tribes and the vietnamese people and the chinese people would
navigate these mountains on simple paths and this coffee shop even has a little museum inside which
documents some of the history behind it and as you look at this map here you can see this blue line
this is the hijuang loop and then this orange line here that's the walking path and we're going to
just take a seven kilometer stretch of it this morning it says welcome to the most beautiful
walking path in vietnam seven thousand meters so just over seven kilometers and it'll spit us back
on the hijacking loop even though it says it's a walking path i'm seeing the locals drive up
so let's do it let's do a seven kilometer drive on the sky path and let's hopefully not fall
to our deaths okay through the jurassic park gates we go and onto the sky path
i'm gonna talk to you a little bit as i'm doing this because it's terrifying and i'm just trying
to keep calm so let me tell you that yesterday we actually came up this section of the pass
because i saw up here i saw a bunch of backpackers and their bikes and their
bright yellow helmets they stuck out like a sore thumb a bunch of tourists just randomly on the
top of this mountain taking pictures because there's a little jagged rock that sticks out
i love the hmong tribe ladies they always have the most colorful cardigans and dresses on
just look to the left here guys
i mean
unbelievable right you can see the misty mountains up ahead
so hopefully fingers crossed for the next seven kilometers it stays like this
just beautiful views wide enough to not worry too much
and we'll just take it slow obviously seven kilometers of this and then we'll get spat
back out to the hijuang loop itself so it's not too bad at the start of a morning if you ask me
if you're wondering by the way you know can i do the hijuang loop even if i don't drive
a motorcycle absolutely you can the tour that i saw yesterday there was loads of
younger people who've never driven motorbikes who were just on an easy rider tour so they had
a vietnamese guy driving them and they were sat on the back a little bit more expensive i think they
paid 180 u.s for a three-day tour that includes all your food and accommodation and your driver
a little bit cheaper if you drive the bike by yourself and of course there was a few english
lads who'd never driven a motorbike in their life and this was the time that they thought best to
start learning on this but hopefully they'll get around um you know safely i'm sure they will
and we're just working our way through corn fields isn't this just the most
beautiful part of the world some areas are quite skinny
very skinny
slow down paddy
up you go up you go
up you go
what gear are we in my muscles are tense you know so it's quite the workout i already feel
a little bit fatigued on my shoulders and my arms because
i think i'm just gripping on for dear life and i'm
going to try and relax into it i hope this isn't
someone's house and this is the end of the street i've gone the wrong way
oh no
i mean is this it hello
bugger
been on this 10 minutes i'm lost already
in a good way i mean these people just live up here in isolation
now even though i'm experienced on a bike guys i've just driven
a small honda like this for the non-stop for the last year in a month or year and a half sorry
look at the view i still don't consider myself a motorcyclist i don't consider myself um
sorry very good at driving or knowledgeable what the actual technique is now here's a turning guys
do you think it's that way
i don't think it's this way but let's just have a little look at the top of this
okay so
now i see steps this is a walking path that goes all the way along it's probably like a
nature trail you see how it follows along this thing and then it looks like the stairs and stuff
i don't think it's this way this is true adventure isn't it but i also just want to be sensible
one stupid mistake or a mechanical failure on the brake or whatever
that's the difference between being alive and being dead
it's gorgeous isn't it absolutely gorgeous if you're wondering like
oh but isn't june rainy season it is rainy season but it's also known as green season
because everything is in bloom the rice paddies are flooded
which creates amazing reflections and you know it doesn't rain every day all day
hello
oh my god my heart melts when i just see those brightly colored montreal villages in their
outfits just transporting vegetables in their baskets to the next village
it's a simple life personified isn't it i wonder what they make
of somebody like me driving around with cameras and talking to myself
i must think i'm mad but yeah going back to my point i think june is a really good time
of year to be here july 2. because you get the drama with the clouds in the sky everything's in
green everything's green and in bloom there's no smoke or haze that they're not burning the crops
or anything and it's not super hot as long as you pack a rain jacket and you can handle driving in a
little bit of rain now and again you're good good to go i feel like this must be it guys because
where are we this is
i'm nervously talking to you because it's concentration mode to a max
and also what talking just makes me less scared it's not that scary but sometimes when you go
around the corner and you see the drop you're like oh my god yeah this is actually just going
to s-bend back down to further back towards where i was staying last night like we've gone back
on the high hijuang loop we've not gone forward i just don't have the navigation tools like
google maps is no good there's no sign posts and i've gotten lost three times in a row so
because i want to take us to the most northernly point of vietnam today and that's going to be our
starting point for this whole adventure the whole point of me being here is to drive from the very
north to the very south and the very north is about an hour away from here so i'm going to
continue down this little s-bend path instead of turning around because i'm kind of almost there
and then we'll make our way to the northernmost point oh kickstand i'm
sorry i didn't get to show you seven kilometers worth of this footage and this this road but i
mean it's beautiful anyway but i just don't really know what i'm doing i'm completely
not used to this terrain
well i hope you enjoyed that rather raw cut together segment i normally don't show such long
sections of me driving without cutting to music or you know just having a what 10 minute section of a
video of me just driving one particular road but it was so scenic and so thrilling that when i was
editing that footage i thought you guys would enjoy i hope you enjoyed that rather unedited
section of the sky pass and i'm sorry i didn't get to share the entire past i'm sure that i probably
missed the best parts of it but like i said i just didn't have the navigation tools to really get
around in one piece and so i made my way back onto the hijuang loop and i drove for about two hours
towards the northernmost point of vietnam on the border of china where they have this beautiful
flagpole atop a mountain this would be the starting point of our adventure from this point
on it's all south but let me show you around the flagpole because it was really interesting welcome
to the long chew flagpole aka the marker for the northernmost point of vietnam right there is china
and all behind us is vietnam and so this is the starting point we can officially say we've started
now our challenge to go from the northernmost point right here at the very top of this ginormous
flagpole huge flag by the way all the way to the southernmost point which is somewhere past saigon
and the in the mere kong delta i'm not quite sure where it is but it's very far away and it
will take us i don't know six seven eight weeks from now to get there make sure i don't drop you
whoo you want to see how high it is pretty high let me grab this flag and we'll touch it
after the ladies okay all right can you just could you just hold this for me
adventure starts now
thank you okay adventure starts now if you're like
episode five or six into this adventure series and you're thinking paddy you've already started
technically we've already started but the geographical challenge starts now
oh
what do we have here
a local selfie spot by the look of it
all the locals have got their gorgeous outfits on
and the girls have got lipstick on and makeup that's very cute
and the vietnamese tourists here instagram game is strong
and the road twists and turns through epic valleys as per usual
these people are working the land in every corner
but for some reason here it's kind of like a human zoo look mommy it's a local person
look at that up there
i will never ever forget how beautiful the haijiang loop is ever
okay we've made it to this town this town here
and what a beautiful place i've checked into a place called bong bang guest house because when
i was talking to the backpackers yesterday having a few beers this is where they were staying the
previous night and they said it was really good atmosphere big crowd big group of toured group
backpackers on the hijuang loop and so i'm kind of hacking that instead of paying money to go
on the tour i'm just staying here and hopefully a big group of people will come in tonight or
this afternoon still quite early it's not even three o'clock yet so stay tuned for the next
episode where we complete the loop i'll share with you what it's like to stay here and what
the shenanigans happens later and we'll just share even more epic views of the incredible hyjung loop
so day three the final day of the loop will be tomorrow in the next video thanks for watching