Far northern Vietnam, Day 3: Dong Van to Meo Vac.
The morning was not kind to us. Damn rice wine had done some serious damage, and in fact as we went for breakfast we left Lucas to sleep it off a little longer. Unfortunately two of our crew had to press on and even though we had only ridden together for two days it wasn’t easy to see the band break up.
For those of us who remained, we may have been down two Indians but we were up three hangovers. With our late start and therefore late arrival the day before we had skipped a few things on the way so we backtracked and made our way to Lung Cu, about as far north as you can go in Vietnam. We were so close to the Chinese border at one point we dismounted from the bikes and strolled to the barbed wire fence and hiked around it for an unsanctioned 5 minute wander around in China.
Illegal border crossings aside we headed north to Lung Cu and the gigantic flag pole with the biggest Vietnamese flag you would ever be likely to see. From there we found a dirt road leading to a village and we had some fun crossing a particularly muddy patch with a sheer drop off the side.
After a stop for some street food at yet another pagoda we got back on the road and got past Dong Van, where we had started our day. The road to Meo Vac isn’t very far but the best scenery yet was on the Ma Pi Leng Pass. The absolutely breath taking views had us full charged as we rode into town, three abreast with the biggest, stupidest shit-eating grins on our faces.
