Sa Pa

The ride from Ha Giang to Sa Pa was a mix of nice highways and insanely bumpy pitted dirt roads so I was really sore after a full day of riding.  I was considering just skipping Sa Pa altogether because the area is now a tourist hotspot and I had seen more than enough rice terraces through the Ha Giang Loop but I continued because I was planning to hike up Fanispan the next day.  In my rush to get to Sa Pa before dark, I didn’t pay attention to where on the map I had booked my accommodations that night. I ended up riding the last hour in darkness through the tight winding roads up the valley where I had booked my stay.  My dirt bike had a very weak headlight so I had to be extra cautious in that last hour.  While I was staying only about 13km away from Sa Pa, it was an hour or so ride through very poor dirt road conditions and it was very foggy early the next morning so I ended up skipping the hike and instead just relaxed and sampled food in Sa Pa for the afternoon.

Sa Pa had a lot of road and building construction going on so I didn’t care much for the city itself but the views along that dirt road from my homestay to Sa Pa were incredible.  I had to keep moving though to stay on schedule to make it to the south of Vietnam by the end of the month so I only stayed in the area a couple nights.

After another very long day of riding, I ended up back in Hanoi and I hated it just as much as the first time. My bike got bumped by another motorcyclist who didn’t even notice hitting me.  I had to battle rush hour traffic to find the service shop that the rental company told me to bring the bike to for repairs.  They swapped in a new carburetor to try to resolve the sticky throttle issue and then I took off again the next morning.

It took a while to realize what was now wrong with the bike but it would get bogged down under hard acceleration and that meant I couldn’t reliably pass vehicles anymore.  Fortunately, I found a Honda service shop that quickly sorted things out.  And once again, they didn’t want me to pay anything.  The last shop swapped in new throttle cables for free.  This shop though just wanted a photo of me with the service team as payment.  I happily obliged and continued riding my fixed up bike to Cuc Phuong National Park.