O Quy Ho, the highest pass in Vietnam, connects two northern provinces of Lao Cai and Lai Chau

Our Vietnam motorbike tours Vietnam to Sapa will lead you to O Quy Ho, the highest pass in Vietnam and it connects two northern provinces of Lao Cai and Lai Chau. Pass O Quy Ho is one of the supply lines pass long and dangerous and the most majestic mountain in northern Vietnam. O Quy Ho Pass running around Hoang Lien Son Mountain Range, so It is also known as Hoang Lien Pass, but travelers having a strong love for the Northwest region prefer using the name O Quy Ho. O Quy Ho was used as the name for the wild mountain pass that is 2,000 meters above the sea level.

Only traveling by joining motorbike tour in North Vietnam, you can have a chance to stop and enjoy the stunning scenery here, feeling like a bird and looking at the sea of cloud beneath your feet. Tourists can also admire the breathtaking Fansipan – the rooftop of Indochina. O Quy Ho Pass, the unorthodox “King of Northwest Pass” holds the record for a length of up to 50 km and the top of the pass at an altitude of nearly 2.000 m, known as “Heaven Gate”. The pass encompasses two thirds of Lai Chau’s Tam Duong District, and one third of Lao Cai’s Sapa District.

O Quy Ho Pass is a major challenge for long-distance riders. If you are novice and joining our Vietnam motorbike tour, you will find the roads dangerous, deep abyss in one side and other side, high mountains. However, if you are confident and overcome fears and ride through the pass, you will have the opportunity to admire the clouds floating like a fairy realm.

Coming to O Quy Ho in the afternoon always brings peace to tourists. That is not important at all wether you start from Binh Lu or Sapa, tourists themselves are taking part in a seesaw with the sun and enjoying colorful sunset behind the mountains on the horizon.

If you can not wait to discover our longest and highest pass in the North of Vietnam, do not hesitate to contact for the best Vietnam motorcycle tours of your life.

The dance festival of the Red Dao people in Yen Bai province

To many riders who join our Vietnam motorbike tours, the customs and habits of the local people in the North of Vietnam are always attract them.

Today, Vietnam Dirtbike travel will introduce you the dance festival of the Red Dao people in Yen Bai province , the popular place in our motorbike tour in North Vietnam. This is the most important religious and cultural ritual of the Dao ethnic group here. It is held from 7pm the 1st and 2nd day of the 1st lunar month to pray for good luck in the new year.

As you can see from the name of the festival, the main ritual consists of dances performed by young men and women under a sorcerer’s direction to the rhythm of gongs. People have different ways of dance (14 styles of dance), each of style has its own meaning. Do Vietnam motorcycle travel here and the local will tell you clearly about them.

The festival is held every 3 to 4 years for people think that civil mandarins and military mandarins are always beside and protect all the adult men and women of the Red Dao people here. The dance is to invite them home so the ancestors will have sufficient power to support the living descendants. If the local people do not organize the festival, The dead will no longer be able to protect the living against natural disasters. The family will suffer business losses and become sick. The festival has been upheld by many generations.

The worshiping ritual is a very important part of the festival, it is the time people review the family’s roots, traditions, production, and achievements. The ritual ends with a dance involving both the sorcerer and the young Dao men.

Besides the festival, the Red Dao people have many things for you to learn, so ride with us for one of the best Vietnam motorcycle tours ever.

Sitting at a street corner of Ta Hien in Hanoi old quarter with a beer glass

Before joining our Vietnam motorbike tours, our customers always spend at least one day free to discover Hanoi. And a frequent question is that: Can you recommend some interesting places in Hanoi?

And the place we highly recommend is Ta Hien street. This small street in the heart of Phố Cổ – ‘the Old Quarter’ – hosts dozens of sidewalk ‘bia hoi’ (draught beer) so it attracts many customers, especially who are intending to join motorbike tour in North Vietnam. Sure, sitting at a street corner in Hanoi old quarter with a beer glass, chatting with your freshly made friends while watching people pass by might be one the most memorable pages in your travel journal.

It is very good for Ta Hien is the first street that backpackers visit when they arrive in Hanoi and the last place they see before they leave. Although the Old Quarter is a very center and also the place where all services are mainly for foreigners with hotels, restaurants, shops…and you can pay in US dollars, Australia dollars, Thai bat…, however, to visitors, Ta Hien is always the most attractive point with “bia hoi”. The street corner of Ta Hien street and Luong Ngoc Quyen are very crowed from morning to late evening, before doing vietnam motorbike rides, you should go there for beer. It is for walking only so no cars, no motorbikes. You can drink very cheap draught beer of 3000 to 5000/glass – very cheap, eat with some snack and cheap street food and chat with your friends. It is customary for Vietnamese to have beer with boiled or roasted peanuts. Try it and love it

The Ta Hien bia hoi sites become more and more crowded as the night grows late. The restaurants here are very small so many customers cannot find a free seat, so they have to stand and wait for others to leave.

Sure, after coming back from hard day motorbike tours Vietnam, you will come here to drink some beer and enjoy the atmosphere here.

For the bia hoi here is very famous, so the sellers can sell over 100 liters of beer per evening. Though all the bia hoi venues are small and cramped, the young Westerners like them very much and pass along their favorite addresses.

Drinking beer is your favourite, so please do not wait to contact us for the best Vietnam motorcycle tours. Just come and we will treat you some beer in Ta Hien street.

The Flower Hmong and their unique culture will continue to bloom well into the future

Motorbike tours Vietnam to the North of Vietnam, you will see a lot of different minorities. One of the ethnic minority groups that our customers feel most excited to see in the Vietnamese Highlands is the Flower H’mong when they ride Vietnam motorcycle tours there.

Do not like Black H’mong, the Flower H’mong are called that because of their multiple-colored outfits. The Flower H’mong’ is one of the numerous sub groups of the H’mong ethnic group, originally from southern China.

The Flower H’mong inhabit both sides of the Chinese and Vietnamese border and are largely undocumented. Motorbike tour in North Vietnam will help you approach many H’mong people. The clothes made by Flower Hmong are mainly distinguished by their use of deep indigo and brown. The decorative patterns are ornate, delicate and harmoniously combine batik motifs, intricate stripes and sophisticated appliquéd dots. The name Flower H’mong alludes to the wealth of colour and texture of their intricately woven costume consisting of layers of skirts, embroidered tops, and a pillbox hat or scarf, all of which wonderfully represent their history and culture.

At first glance when doing Vietnam motorcycle travel up North, the bustling markets of Bac Ha and Can Cau recall a medieval age. Closer inspection reveals them to be thriving modern tribal institutions featuring a unique interpretation of the latest fashions and trends. With luck, the Flower Hmong and their unique culture will continue to bloom well into the future.

Please join Vietnam Motorbike Tours to Sapa and from there, take a little time to visit Bac Ha and Can Cau market, you will meet many Flower H’mong people there. They are very easy to be recognized.

The village of Ban Pho in Bac Ha town is the home of Flower H’mong. Sure, you will learn more about the culture and habits of this minority than only their cloths, especially how they make the best rice wine in the area.

Today, we would like to introduce you about Coc Ly market

Today, we would like to introduce you about Coc Ly market:

If you want to visit the most un-spoiled market in the Sapa region, go to Coc Ly. Coc Ly market is held every day from 7 am to early afternoon on Tuesday. You can get here via a good road, or by road and river. If by road when joining Vietnam motorbike tours, from Dist. Lao Cai, following the national highway 4D, visitors will come to Bao Thang district, Lao Cai province, Vietnam. Turn left and follow provincial road 154 which sneaks through the country side along the Chay River for 17 km to Coc Ly. The market is also very near Sapa, just only 95km from Sapa. Visiting Coc Ly market, you can enjoy your time at the market by walking around, bargaining and taking in the sights and sounds of local life. A good idea is to stroll every corner of the once-a-week bazaar as you listen to unexpected conversations, see nice surprises and learn how ethnic people sell and buy farm produce, life’s necessities and other things. And you can buy some souvenir during your motorbike tour in North Vietnam.

Because it is a medium sized minority peoples market that you should visit when having Vietnam motorbike rides, so what catches the eyes of visitors most are the different colors of the costumes worn by ethnic people and the handicrafts they sell at the market. You can find some of the minority hill-tribes here such as: Flower Hmong (Red Hmong), Black Dao, Nung, Giay and Tay peoples in attendance and the goods on offer range from local fruit and vegetables to livestock, handicrafts and clothes. The colorful items are put on sale not just for locals but also tourists, particularly foreigners. However, you should remember to bargain when you want to buy your favorites.

Let’s discover the market with us by booking our best Vietnam motorcycle tours.

Sapa church, the most ancient architectural work of the French left in Sa Pa

Vietnam Dirtbike Travel organize many custom Vietnam motorcycle tours covering every destination in Vietnam for all levels.

If you love Sapa and found the information about this beautiful town through the photos on internet before coming with us for one of the best motorbike tours Vietnam, you can see the Sapa church which is so oustanding in many photos.

Sa Pa church is located in a prime location, shielded by Ham Rong Mountain on the back, facing a large, flat area, which is the home to colorful festivals of the mountain town. The church was built in 1895 and it is the most ancient architectural work of the French left in Sa Pa, Lao Cai. Before starting to build this structure, the French architect selected carefully about the terrain. was built in 1895 and it is the most ancient architectural work of the French left in Sa Pa, Lao Cai.

The whole church was built by stone (walls, floors, bell towers …) that are linked by a mixture of sand, lime and molasses under the cross by Roman gothic architecture With total area over 6000m2, Sapa church has enough rooms for the arrangement of the area. The interior is decorated with lovely stained glass windows in a modern style that depict the life of Christ that you will be surprised very much when riding motorbike tours in Vietnam. The church includes seven spacious rooms of more than 500 m2, with the 20 m bell tower and a bell of 1.5 meters high, cast in 1932, weighing 500 kg and the resonation within a radius of nearly one kilometer. Choosing the direction of the church has important spiritual significance for Catholics. The church faces the east, towards the rising sun to welcome the light of the God. At the end of the church (the bell tower) is the west, the birthplace of Christ.

Motorbike tour in North Vietnam, you will find this church of Sapa is always a place where holds many traditional cultural activities of ethnic minorities. At the church, ethnic minorities often held traditional activities known by tourists as ‘market situation”. Additionally, because the structure was designed early, the church of Sapa experienced many events of history.

Though having been standing in the land for more than a hundred years and witnessed the contemporary history of Vietnam, Sapa Church is always under quite well maintenance. Sa Pa Stone Church has been nominated by the Vietnam Records Book Centre as one of the top five over 100-year-old churches in Vietnam.

Do not hesitate to contact us to book one of the best Vietnam Motorbike Tours ever to visit this so famous church in Vietnam.

Mèn Mén is made from glutinous corn through many stages

Joining Vietnam motorbike tours to Ha Giang, please remember to enjoy Mèn Mén, A Unique Dish here. This dish is made from glutinous corn through many stages to create corn meal which is then steamed. After many processed stages, Mèn Mén became a very unique and attractive dish with nutty and greasy flavour. Enjoying hot “Mèn Mén” is wonderful. And you should chew it properly to feel its sweetness.

Not hard to do but yeast (Mèn Mén) requires elaborate and time consuming. To cook Mèn mén, each Mong family has to steam Mèn Mén from early morning for the whole day. Processing Mèn Mén requires much time with steps: split, grind corn into flour and sift to remove corn skin. It is required 2 times of steaming. In the first steaming, corn flour absorbs water to keep the flour non – glutinous. After that, the flour is left to get cold before the second steaming. “Mèn Mén” was regarded as the main dish of ethnic highlands that you should try in your motorbike tour in North Vietnam because this dish was made from corn, a kind of food available.

If you ride motorcycle tours to the North of Vietnam right in the festivals, holidays or fairs of the H’mong, you can see that Mèn Mén is an dispensible dish of Mong people.

“Mèn Mén” is enjoyed in different ways in different highland provinces. Mèn Mén is a dry dish; thus, a bowl of soup is necessary in the meals (such as pumpkin soup, soup of chicken or cabbage soup).You can enjoy it with pumpkin soup when do Vietnam motorbike rides. In Lao Cai, “Mèn Mén” is served with bean brain and Bac Ha  corn wine. In all festivals, holidays or fairs of the H’mong in northern highland, this unique dish can not be missed.

Please do not hesitate to ask us any questions about Vietnam motorcycle tours. We are very happy  to ride with you to all of the worth to see places in Vietnam.

Vietnam Beautiful Landscape

Vietnam On Two Wheels

Vietnam Motorcycle Tours with Dirtbiketravel

The Ha Nhi uses a slash-and-burn method of cultivation and plant on terraced fields

54 peoples in Vietnam own their own special features. Vietnam Motorbike Tours to the northern mountain commune of Bat Xat of Lao Cai province, you will meet the Black Ha Nhi ethnic people who live in 8 out of 16 villages, making up 54% of the commune’s population.

The Ha Nhi people have always been known to be diligent. They cook inside the house which is always dark, except for two small roof holes for sunlight to get through. On the Vietnam motorcycle tours, you will see Ha Nhi house has a system architecture that is relatively unique. The houses always lean towards the hill and look toward the valley because of the full wealth in such house. Living at an altitude of 2,000m, where you can have a very nice view in your motorbike tour in North Vietnam. Ha Nhi people build houses from mud and soil, with very thick walls to resist cold winter. A thin wall separates the house into two parts, with the first for receiving guests, and the other for sleeping and cooking.

The costume of Ha Nhi women consists of a hat, a blouse, a waistband and a brassiere. The most striking feature of their costume is the hat. It is plaited from horse hair which creates a section of artificial hair across the woman’s forehead. The Ha Nhi people in Bat Xat District, the very popular place in our vietnam motorcycle travel in Lao Cai wear only one type of costume. It is used both on work days and for important events such as New Year Holiday, festivals, funerals and wedding ceremonies.

Ha Nhi language belongs to the Tibet-Burman Group. Young men and women are free to choose their partners. The Ha Nhi is one of a few ethnic groups in Vietnam who celebrate both the Kinh’s traditional Lunar New Year Festival and their own festivals, which are scattered throughout the year. Known for their hospitality, Ha Nhi people always invite lots of relatives and friends to their home to enjoy Tet.

They are one of the groups who have a traditional experience in reclaiming terraced fields on mountain slopes, digging canals and building small dams. The Ha Nhi uses a slash-and-burn method of cultivation and plant on terraced fields. Animal husbandry is well developed as well as weaving cloth and basketry articles.

Ride with us for Vietnam motorcycle tours to learn more about this special people.

Lai Chau province is some of the most spectacular scenery you can see in the far northwest of Vietnam

One of the favourite destinations in our Vietnam motorbike tours’ itineraries is Than Uyen, and Than Uyen belongs to Lai Chau, which is 450 kilometers from the capital Hanoi. This complex of plateaus is situated at the altitude of 1,500m above sea level, comprising high mountains, pure streams and rivers.

Lai Chau Province in motorbike tours in Vietnam has drawn scores of tourists to its stunning cloudy mountain peaks, enchanting waterfalls, vast rice fields and hospitable locals. The longest and largest river in the province is Da river. Lai Chau has 273 km border line, which enables bustling trading between Vietnam and China. Belong to tropical monsoon zone; the climate of Lai Chau is divided into two seasons: rain season and dry season. The annual average temperature is 21ºC – 23ºC.

Lai Chau province is inhabited by up to 23 ethnic groups, most notably the Thai and the H’mong. Each ethnic group has its own definition in cultural life tradition, which is expressed very clearly in the market fairs held all year around. If you travel with us by joining our Vietnam motorcycle tours, you will pass Pha Din Pass. In the local language, Pha Din means Heaven-Earth. Climbing and descending the slopes with their bends and deep gorges is a really interesting trip amid such a magnificent scenery. The scenery of Lai Chau province is some of the most spectacular scenery you can see in the far northwest of Vietnam.

About the attractive places, Tien Son Cave is the most significant name. The cave includes 49 rooms and these rooms are bigger as you explore deeper. Sin Ho Village is also another interesting place in the motorbike tour in North Vietnam for you to have a new way to explore Lai Chau. Here, you can meet the locals coming from many ethnic minorities like Thai, Dao and experience a day of them with many interesting and memorable moments in their colorful markets and festivals.

Festivals are one among the most activities of Lai Chau in particular and mountainous regions’ in general. The most popular one in Lai Chau is “Hoa Ban festival”, which reflects the cultural and spiritual life of Thai people. Now come with us for motorbike tours Vietnam to know more about the land.