Woo!
We travelled for 4 days and 554km through the beautiful countryside of northern Vietnam.
All via public transport in search of one insane waterfall.
Hello guys Ryan here and welcome back to the One Shot Adventures channel.
I’m here at the Ban Gioc Waterfall in
Northern Vietnam probably the most beautiful waterfall in the whole country and the question
I want to ask in this film is: why doesn’t anybody come here?
The truth is it’s a little far away.
From just about anything.
Ban Gioc is a collection of waterfalls that sit on the far northern border of Vietnam
and China.
And it’s a pretty remote place to get to from either side.
Making the whole journey a pretty epic adventure.
Getting to Ban Gioc without a motorbike definitely requires some patience.
The first leg of our trip took us from the centre of Hanoi to the Northern city of Cao
Bang.
A seven hour coach ride through the mountains.
Late in the day we were dropped in the middle of Cao Bang city which feels a little bit
like Hanoi but without any tourists.
We chose to break up our journey here because it’s still another 85km to the falls.
The next morning we got up early and swapped our luxury coach for a small rickety local
bus.
Not only did it get driven like a bloody rally car through the twisting mountain roads, but
it also stopped constantly acting as a sort of postal service for the more remote villages.
They were loading and unloading packages almost every ten minutes which was pretty fun to
watch.
The views of the greenery and the karst mountains only got better as the journey went along.
And two very bumpy hours later we arrived in
The village of Dam Thuy which I’m almost definitely not pronouncing right.
Well we are definitely off the beaten path now.
Our time in this area was pretty special.
It’s so quiet and disconnected from any
Sort of tourist infrastructure.
The best and most affordable places to stay in this area are in the village homestays.
Simple houses made from stone and wood that have an open plan communal feeling.
Rahh!
We were welcomed in by the family right away and we felt so at home here.
And I think we actually became unofficial babysitters by the time we left.
We arrived at the homestay which is really really nice and it’s only a half hour walk
to the waterfall from there but we’ve decided that we are not going to see that today we’re
going to wait until tomorrow morning because it is Sunday today and it does tend to get
a bit busier on weekends with domestic tourists.
So instead we’re going to check out this cave which is just a kilometre from the village.
Nguom Ngao cave is an extremely beautiful spot.
It’s 45000 dong per person to get in and I think it’s just down here.
It is definitely not the easiest cave to get into.
You almost have
to crawl through this tiny gap in the rock.
But once you are inside the rock formations are absolutely stunning.
There are so many caves to visit in Vietnam but trust me this is one of the best.
We spent that evening talking to the locals and some other travellers too, some of them
were actually part of a film crew who were there to shoot an advert for the local area
so we got to watch them film some live music which was a really nice surprise.
Just popped out for a little walk to check out the morning views.
It’s incredible here.
Today is waterfall day but there are a couple of things we want to see on the way there.
So let’s get to it.
The falls are only a few kilometres from the homestay so we decided to set off on foot.
So just down the road from the waterfall is a temple up on the hill and it’s supposed
to have amazing views over the falls so we’re going to climb up here and get our first view.
God it’s steep.
So here we are.
Our first view of the waterfall.
Straight across from here on the other side of the river is China.
The waterfall sits right on the northern border.
So on this side of the river you’ve got boats from Vietnam and on the other side you’ve
got boats from China and they’re not allowed to pass down the middle.
Ok we’ve waited long enough let’s get to the main event.
It costs 45000 dong to get in and then you walk through this market first and on the
other side is the waterfall.
This is awesome!
From the Vietnamese side you get two waterfalls for the price of one and honestly the falls
over to the side are arguably much more impressive than the central ones.
So we’ve seen in from the land now it’s time to get a little bit closer.
That’s so nice!
It’s getting a bit wet!
I’ve got to say for somewhere so beautiful it really is surprising how quiet it is.
There’s places, there’s waterfalls I’ve been to which are much less impressive than
this and it’s absolutely packed so it wouldn’t surprise me if over the next few years this
gets much more popular but right now it’s a bit of a hidden gem.
Ban Gioc Waterfall is spectacular but honestly it was everything else that made our time
there so special.
The untouched scenery.
The friendly welcoming people and the epic winding journey through the mountains made
it something we will never forget.
Next time we head to the world famous lantern town of Hot An which I absolutely hated.
Thank you so much for watching this video make sure you leave a like, subscribe and
I’ll see you next time.