We did our tour through Nomadders and
loved it. Would strongly recommend them to anyone who isn't looking to party
every night. It's run by an English guy, Ross, who does a great job keeping
tour groups small and making sure his drivers and others he works with are taken
care of. Some other popular tour companies (Bong and Mamas) have huge groups and
tend much younger. Cousin Anjali did one of these and had a great time, but told
us we would be the oldest on the tour by far. True, from what we saw :)
Lots of tasty family-style meals.
We saw a shocking amount of corn. Mostly for
feed and as a cash crop -- they don't eat much of it.
Stunning landscapes.
Learning how to weave from cheerful Ha and
listening to traditional Hmong music from our homestay host, Hong.
The kitchen in a stilt house of the Tay
people. Every house had a giant speaker for karaoke but we eventually did
some singing in a restaurant with our drivers.
A big rain had just washed out this road, but
we never would have tried it if we were on a 20-bike tour through Bong.
Our drivers were just 20-somethings out there
having fun with us.
Locals loved taking our picture with the
Vietnam flag. A view of China in the distance.
Smiles all around.
Some locals were happy to see us. Almost all
the men smoked tobacco out of bamboo water pipes.
Fun on the road but we were happy to make it
back to the hostel.
The sleeper buses were fairly comfortable but the drivers were aggressive and
didn't make many bathroom stops. This was not our favorite part of the trip.
