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This region is now of the most beautiful, unaffected and untouristy areas of Vietnam. The few tourists that do come up this way either hire a jeep and driver or do it by motorbike. You can also do the loop by local bus, though you would need intestinal fortitude for this. Another alternative is to hitch. Regardless of which method you elect, you are guaranteed to pass through spectacular ravines and over breathtaking passes. To the west of the pass to Sapa, you will see hill tribe people who stare at you as if you just landed in a UFO.

Join us for a magical journey into the boonies of Vietnam, taking the back road to Sapa. Beginning at Hoa Binh with the first stop at Mai Chau, the circuit continues to Moc Chau and Son La with a diversion to Dien Bien Phu that was the site of the infamous siege. From here you can continue to Lai Chau via Tuan Giao, then Phong Tho before crossing one of the highest mountain passes in Vietnam and entering Sapa through the back door. Most tourists only visit Sapa direct from Hanoi by train, missing the unique appeal and essence of this astonishing region.

(The areas are getting touristy as more foreigners are coming. But there are still many places which are just a bit off the beaten tracks, so please come back this page to explore the new lands)

To the Southwest of Hanoi, Hoa Binh is a good place to get a late breakfast. Hoa Binh is also a popular stop for package tours who want to take a peek at the start of the mountains and some of the hilltribes in the surrounding area.

Hoa Binh is a quite sizeable place, characterised by one main road. At Song Da Reservoir, a boat trip can be taken to the far side of the lake, where a number of interesting caves can be explored. Also, Hoa Binh is well-known for hilltribes such as Muong, Thai and Meo, all of whom can be seen in the town and in the surrounding area.

This small village is not marked on many maps, but if you are heading north of Hoa Binh to Moc Chau it is impossible to miss. Mai Chau is set about 2.5 hours north of Hoa Binh and is approached as you go down the side of a very steep valley. The village, nestled between two steep cliffs and surrounded by emerald green paddies, is enchanting to look at as you wind down the sliff side.

The scenery between Hoa Binh and Mai Chau is spectacular as you pass through many different landscapes, including an area about 1.5 hours north of Hoa Binh that is reminiscent of Halong Bay. You will also pass through valleys still packed with awesome old growth forest and through villages inhabited by hilltribe people.

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Moc Chau is a fairly stretched out, glorified truck stop. The only hotel in town is about 2 km to the south of the centre of Moc Chau. So when you walk from the hotel to the centre of the town you have to walk up a hill and through a low pass. There are loads of hilltribe people in this town, and the surrounding villages. The market is particularly colourful.

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Son La was the site of a sizeable French garrison before the Dien Bien Phu battle. However, now nothing remains to bear evidence of this, except for its positioning, halfway between Hanoi and Dien Bien Phu.

The only reason we mention Tuan Giao is that it is a convenient place to break the journey for lunch between Son La and Dien Bien Phu. It has a nice little restaurant on the main road. The restaurant is run by an elderly Vietnamese gentlemen who speaks a little French, has a pool table out back and quite decent food.

Between Thuan Chau and Tuan Giao the scenery improves dramatically, and despite the lack of a single tree, is very striking. As the road winds up to a pass, you meander through little villages where the hilltribes go about life as if nothing has changed in very long time.

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This was the scene of the siege in 1954 that finally broke the back of the French war effort in Vietnam. In an attempt to halt Viet Minh incursions into Laos, the French commander, Navarre, decided to establish a ‘super garrison’ at the top end of a valley at modern day Dien Bien Phu. This was to police the strategic cross-roads between Laos to the west, Son La to the south and Lai Chau to the north. He believed that with this base firmly established in the Far Northwest, he would be able to launch sorties against the Viet Minh, and greatly reduce their strength in the area. He was to be proved terribly wrong.

The Viet Minh commander, Vo Nguyen Giap, finally saw an opportunity for an open confrontation with the French and started working towards it. By mid 1953, the base was completed and regarded in French circles as virtually impregnable. With twelve battalions of French, Morrocan and Algerian soldiers, two airstrips, a heavily mined perimeter and surrounded by a number of smaller defensive positions, named Dominique, Elaine, Claudine and Huguette. These were named, supposably, after the four mistresses of the base commander Colonel Marie Ferdinand de la Croix de Castries. The troops within the compound slept fairly soundly at night! The French even went to the extent of flying in an entire brothel of French women to keep the soldiers happy!!

For Giap and his comrades, however, the struggle had hardly begun. They embarked on an incredible logistical feat of dragging up, in pieces, various heavy field guns that were then hidden in caves and dense forest cover in the hills surrounding the Dien Bien Phu base. By early 1954, Giap had over 40,000 men in the hills, completely surrounding the base. It was estimated that just to keep Giap’s men fed, over 250,000 porters were used to ferry food.

For the French it was their ignorance amongst other things that led to their downfall. Though they knew the Viet Minh had some troops in the surrounding hills, nothing was done about it, until it was too late. On 10 March 1954, to the horror of the French, Viet Minh shells started landing on the airstrip. Giap possessed a comprehensive plan, first if which was the neutralisation of the airstrips, thus completing the siege. The French were taken completely by supprise, and after the first day of shelling, an assault was made on Gabrielle. By midnight 13 March, Beatrice had fallen. The fighting was fierce, with the Viet Minh often following up hours of shelling with human wave tactics, incurring shocking casualties. At times the fighting was hand to hand and always chaotic, with the French utterly frustrated by their inability to hit Giap’s well-concealed guns.

Within five days, both the airfields had been completely destroyed and the garrison could only be re-supplied by airdrops, an increasingly perilous pastime, proven by the wrecked planes on the ground. As the Viet Minh edged closer and closer in trenches, the airdrops increasingly fell into Vietnamese hands. The position was becoming truly desperate.

At the start of April there was a lull in the fighting during which Navarre parachuted in some of his crack troops adding to his garrison now totalling about 16,000. Giap also brought in his reserves, edging his forces up towards the 50,000 mark. The French were desperate and they appealed to the US for assistance, preferring bomber strikes from their bases in the Philippines. By this stage the US was funding 78% of the French war effort, so they hardly had unstained hands. They came back with a proposal for limited tactical nuclear strikes on the Vietnamese positions along with a series of strikes on China, fearing ‘another Korea’, all of which would be performed on French behalf. Thankfully this insanity was avoided by the British giving the idea a big no and congress getting cold feet. In the end there was nothing forthcoming from the US.

For the French, the end was near. On 4 May following a series of attacks, the Viet Minh attacked with a force previously unwitnessed and by 8 May the garrison finally surrended. By this stage the conditions within were unimaginable, with maggots in the wounds of the injured and an incredibly demoralised fighting force. It was estimated that during the battle 7,000 French and close to 20,000 Vietnamese had lost their lives. This loss finally caused the French to withdraw from Vietnam.

Dien Bien Phu now bears few scars except for the occasional scattered tank to bear witness to its horrendous past, though it is still one of the remotest areas you could visit. The hilltribes living around the area of Dien Bien Phu make up 70% of the regions population, and the ethnic minority groups include the Black Thai, Nung, Meo, Loa and others.

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The scenery between Lai Chau and Tam Duong is some of the most spectacular scenery you can see in the far Northwest. The moutains, often still quite densely forested, are striking with abrupt peaks and on a clear day you can see many of the even larger peaks rising from the Chinese side of the border. Around Phong Tho is as close as you will get to the Chinese frontier. Look around at the villages you pass through, this area is one of the remotest town in North Vietnam.