You watched a road bend through green mountains. Now you are here, checking whether the person behind it is a real human being.
Fair. I would check too.
I am Thuy. Thuy Bui. Born in Ha Giang, still living in Ha Giang. I run a hostel here, and I run Ha Giang Loop trips with a team of local easy riders who grew up on these roads.
I also love travelling my own country, and I have been to a lot of it. So ask me anything without booking anything. Which bus. Whether to ride or sit behind someone. What the weather does in your month. Where to go after you leave the mountains. I will answer even if you go with another company.
I know what it is like to be the one holding all the questions. I had to write mine down on paper first.
The fastest way to reach me is WhatsApp, on +84 375 299 476. Send a voice note if typing is easier.
Before I Could Speak English, I Wrote the Questions Down
I studied auditing. I chose tourism anyway.
So I started with none of the things you are supposed to have. No experience in this industry. No money. No English.
The English frightened me most. A guest would ask something ordinary and I would freeze with my mouth half open.
So I took a sheet of paper and wrote down the questions guests asked me most. How do I get here from Hanoi. Do I need a licence. Is it safe. Not grammar drills. Just those lines, again and again, until I could say them to a person’s face without my voice shaking.
It worked. Slowly. Then I handed the same paper to my family and my team, and they talk to guests now too.
The question you feel silly asking me is one I once practised out loud, alone, in my own house. There are no stupid ones here.
I Am From Ha Giang, So I Cannot Disappear
I work in the same valleys I grew up in. That is worth more than any promise I could type at you.
If your trip goes badly, I do not vanish. I am at the office the next morning, and my neighbours know my face.
The easy riders are Ha Giang people, not drivers hired for a season and gone by the end of it. They learned these passes as kids. They want you to like it here, because here is where they live.
I never had money for advertising. All I had was a pin on Google Maps and the nerve to ask guests to write what they honestly thought. Good or bad. The more real voices, the more people believed me.
So I will not quote any of it back at you. Go and read it yourself.
Nothing clever brings a person back a second time. Only care does.
You Do Not Have to Ride a Motorbike Yourself
There is more than one way to do this loop, and only one of them puts you on the handlebars. You can ride it yourself, if you already ride. You can sit behind an easy rider, a local driver from Ha Giang, and spend the whole time looking sideways at the mountains instead of down at the next bend. Or you can go by jeep, which is what many couples pick.
So if you have never touched a motorbike, that does not end your trip. It changes which seat you sit in.
If you do want to ride, I will not hand you a comfortable line about paperwork. Licence rules and travel insurance are real, they depend on the documents you hold, and they are worth checking before you leave home. Ask me and I will tell you what I honestly understand, even when that answer costs me the booking.
What the First Day Looks Like From Where I Stand
It starts at my office in the Hanoi Old Quarter. You turn up with your bag and your nerves. Then a VIP sleeper bus, with more than one departure time in the day, so you can pick the one that does not drop you somewhere strange in the dark.
Then someone from my hostel is waiting when you arrive. That is the part I care about most.
You get a dorm bed that first night, free. Breakfast is a buffet you eat half awake. The tour rolls out in the morning. Whatever you do not want on the loop goes into the storage room and waits for you. The big backpack. The laptop. The shoes you already regret packing.
Ask Me About the Rest of Vietnam, Not Only My Mountains
I did not stay home. Travelling is the thing I love, and I have spent years going wherever in this country I could get to.
Night trains. Slow buses that stop for no reason. Beach towns, river towns, cities where I got lost on purpose. Some places I would send my own friends to. A few were not worth the detour, and that is useful to know as well.
So my help does not stop when your loop ends. Almost nobody flies here just for these mountains. You have weeks in Vietnam, and the rest of that trip is the part people get wrong.
Where to head next. How to go south without burning half your week in transit. Which town deserves a slow morning and which one you can skip. What to eat in a place where nobody speaks your language, and how to order it.
Ask me about any part of Vietnam. If I have been there, I will tell you what I actually thought, not what a brochure says.
And if I have not been there, I will tell you that too. Then I will ask someone who has.
I Answer People Who Never Book Anything
Some of the people I message every day are riding with another company. Some bought their own bike in Hanoi. Some are nowhere near Ha Giang and never will be. They are planning a trip somewhere else in the country and just wanted to ask a local.
I still answer.
None of this is a secret worth guarding. Which night bus is better. What the loop actually costs. What the rain does to the road in your month. What you need on the bike and what is dead weight. Where to spend your last days before your flight. The person who gives is the person who wins. And the moment I push you to buy something, you get scared of me and stop asking. So I do not push.
Not all of it is about tours. When guests want to, I take them out to plant trees on ground that needed them. And there is a boarding school not far from here where the children now eat lunch in a canteen my company paid for. I do that because I live here, and because I can.
I want you to have a great trip in Vietnam. All of it, not only my part. Whatever you need to know, just tell me, and I will help you as much as I can.
So write to me. Tell me when you land, how long you have in the country, and whether you have ever ridden a motorbike. Then ask the question you think is stupid. That one usually matters most.
Just ask.
WhatsApp +84 375 299 476, or email [email protected]. If you are in Hanoi, walk into my office at No. 22 Phat Loc Street in the Old Quarter, any day, from eight in the morning until eight at night. Every way to reach me is on the contact page.
Short Answers to the Questions I Get Most
Do I need a motorbike licence to do the Ha Giang Loop?
Not if you are not the one riding. Sitting behind an easy rider, or going by jeep, keeps you out of the driver’s seat. If you want to ride yourself, licence and insurance rules depend on the documents you hold, so check them before you travel. Tell me your situation and I will tell you honestly what I understand of it.
Is the Ha Giang Loop safe?
I will not promise you a perfect road, because nobody honest can. It is a mountain route: weather, traffic, drops. What I can tell you is who is beside you, riders from Ha Giang who ride these passes all year, not seasonal hires. Tell me your real experience and I will say which option I would put you in. I would rather annoy you now than have you stuck on a pass in the rain on a bike you cannot handle.
How do I get from Hanoi to Ha Giang?
By VIP sleeper bus from the Hanoi Old Quarter, with more than one departure time, so you can arrive in daylight if that matters. Someone from the hostel meets you when you get in, so you are not landing in a strange town alone.
Can you help me plan the rest of my Vietnam trip, not just Ha Giang?
Yes, and I like that question. I have travelled a lot of this country myself, north and south. Tell me your dates and what you enjoy, and I will tell you where I would go, what I would skip, and how to move between places without losing days. No charge, no booking involved.
Thuy Bui is from Ha Giang, Vietnam. She trained in auditing, then went into tourism at home with no industry background, no capital and no English, teaching herself the language by drilling the questions travellers actually asked. A traveller herself, she has explored much of Vietnam beyond her own province. She now runs accommodation and Ha Giang motorbike tours on the Loop with a team of local easy riders, and answers traveller questions daily, about anywhere in the country, booking or no booking.