Day 1 – Hanoi 

After picking up from your home or hotel, we meet outside the front of My Dinh bus station at 7:30pm. Bus departs for Ha Giang at 8:30 pm.

The next morning, we rise early to head out for the Dong Van Rocky Plateau. We pass through towering gorges and climb steep ridges, scattered in places with the ruins of French forts and barricades. After lunch in Yen Minh, the road climbs even higher towards Dong Van, the green landscape of forest and paddy becoming barren and rocky. Soon we find ourselves in the plateau’s eerie and otherworldly domain of boulders and jagged rock faces. The colourful scarves of H’mong tribespeople, eking out a living among these mountains, brighten this incredible lunar scene. We have coffee at an atmospheric H’mong house in Dong Van’s Old Quarter before heading out for the day’s final breathtaking journey: a flight through the clouds across the Ma Pi Leng  pass, perhaps South-East Asia’s most spectacular road. We arrive at our residence for the night at 4pm, and after the long journey, it’s a relief to relax at Auberge de Meo Vac, an old H’mong fort now restored as a luxury homestay.

Day4 – MeoVac/HaGiang

We have an early breakfast in Meo Vac market, and work on a 3 picture story of the bustling scene here. People from the many ethnic minority villages in the surrounding mountains descend for this market, trading everything from buffalo to herbal medicines. After the market, we hit the road again, riding out of Meo Vac around the far side of the rocky plateau, and we are greeted by stunning scenes as the cloud lifts from the valleys below. We enjoy lunch in Yen Minh before making the final journey back to Ha Giang City. We have an editing session in Ha Giang to finalise our 7 picture stories, and then dinner at 6pm. Our bus back to Hanoi departs at 8pm.

Day 5 – Hanoi

We arrive at My Dinh Bus Station at 5am, and hail taxis for home. Farewell.