The ideal way to see the Tolkiensk terrain of the Ha Giang Highlands in northern Vietnam is from the seat of a motorbike. I came to this conclusion in early May, when tour guide Sung Mi Kee hired our group to take us skyward HondaTowards his village—one of many in the north settled by the Hmong, one of Vietnam’s largest ethnic minorities. My daughters, Jenna and Michaela, and Jenna’s fiancée, Jack, joined me and, as our bikes climbed a steep, switchback path the government had just built two years earlier, made up of mostly wooden plank houses. A settlement emerged from a stone forest. Black Limestone.
The pandemic had separated our family for more than two years, this was the girls’ first trip to Vietnam, where my wife and I have been living since 2018 and, like other countries in the region, international tourism will resume this spring. started. With the nearest airport in Hanoi, six hours south by car, Ha Giang has primarily been the preserve of intrepid two-wheeled travelers content to stay in cheap, rustic homes and hotels.