For the Reunification Day - Labor Day holiday at the end of April and beginning of May, I wanted to take Kelsey on the A Luoi Loop through west-central Vietnam. This amazing road, which traverses through the still-wild Truong Son Mountains, is one of the signature drives of central VIetnam, and I was keen to show it to Kelsey, who hadn't seen it yet. When the holiday came, we set out early on a Saturday morning and began what would turn out to be a great motorbike trip.
The High Road to A Luoi
The first part of the drive was pretty uneventful, just a great cruise along the QL-14G, the road to Prao. This road is great because it passes through a handful of great local and ethnic villages, as well as having great scenery. I stopped to show Kelsey the large goul they had recently completed in the village of Jo Ngay. These large, round buildings are the communal centers for small, ethnic Vietnamese villages, and every decently sized village had one. I was eager to show them to Kelsey as we drove along. We were in Prao in no time, enjoying the sunshine. Can I just take a moment and say that I have never been a big fan of the food in Prao? I don't know why it's not so great, and I've tried a fair number of places in my trips through. I guess I'll keep on trying, and keep trying to find that great place.
Top & Middle: A Zich Village and Kelsey with it. Bottom: A Zich's goul.
While the road to Prao first follows the A Vuong River through it's impressive Upper Canyon, eventually it goes up and over a ridge, and drops into the valley of the Ta Lang River. The road drops back down to river level, and crosses the river in the town of B'ha Le, which is also where the turn to Tay Giang and the modern frontier takes off. From B'ha Le, the road then wraps in and out of innumerable bends along the Ta Lang River. The last bit of civilization, a tiny village called A Tep, is the last vestige of humanity, and quickly past the road breaks out of the canyon and begins climbing up into the big mountains.
Scenery along the drive. This was along the ridgetops section.
This section of road is truly a gem. It's in great condition, with a great high speed surface. It's got lots of pull offs for photos. But most important of all, the area that it crosses is a huge chunk of untouched wilderness, countless acres of virgin Southeast Asian mountain jungle. It was in these jungles that they found a Sao La, a small deer-like species, in 1992, the first large new animal to be discovered in the area, and thought to be extinct and undocumented for most of the preceding century. I wouldn't be surprised if there was still a small, solitary population of tigers in these jungles. Large mountain peaks frame several large river canyons, and most importantly, not a road or piece of development in sight.
The road stayed amongst the ridge tops for a while, weaving in and out of numerous small creeks, never gaining or losing that much elevation as it did so. However, eventually the road began to drop down, down down, and we crossed the headwaters of the Huu Trach River, one that would become quite large much further downstream in Hue Province. We stopped a couple times for photographs but our first real stop was a at a small waterfall located about halfway along the long climb back up to the ridgetops after the river crossing. After a short break, we got back to the road, stopping briefly to check out the impressive set of stacked waterfalls on a creek the road crosses over.
Waterfalls everywhere. First the one we stopped and swam in (above), and the big sequence further down the road (below).
The next section of the road is quite level, but weaves in and out of countless more small creeks and ravines. At one point along this road comes around a corner and there is a government compound of some kind. It looks like some kind of National Forest camp, but I am not really sure. It's a bit jarring after all the countless miles of untouched jungle, but it's quickly passed. In the next sections there are two tunnels as well. I had been through across this stretch less than a month before, and there was a big ole herd of buffalo hanging out in the middle of the 2nd tunnel, but they weren't in there on this trip.
At the end of the 2nd tunnel, the road breaks out into a beautiful view. The mountains rise in ever-growing ridges off to the west. The furthest visible peaks are actually in Laos, showing just how close the border is. The road takes its time wandering and dropping down into the visible valley below. This valley and surrounding area is known as A Roang, and is home to several beautiful ethnic villages It is a gorgeous mountain valley, a true modern day Shangri-La; largely undeveloped and surrounded by raw jungle mountains on several sides. Supposedly there is a hot springs somewhere in the area but I don't know where to find them yet. While we were in A Roang, we took a short side road down the A Roang River to check out a hydropower project just below town. Here, there used to be some massive waterfalls on the river, but now they have been dewatered as the water is dammed and diverted around the drops.
A Luoi & Thac Ta Re
After checking out the A Roang Project, we continued north, quickly crossing over a small pass and dropping into the A Shau Valley. This valley, which is over 50 km long, is a pretty impressive landmark in west-central Vietnam, and in addition to having a rather sizable ethnic population, saw some heavy and brutal fighting during the US War. The notorious "Hamburger Hill" is located just a handful of miles west of town. After checking into our hotel, we went for a cruise around town, checking out the Cho A Luoi and eating a delicious bowl of bun thit nuong.
That afternoon we strolled up to Thac Ta Re, a beautiful waterfall just 20 minutes outside of town. I wont go too much into it here, if you want to read more about it you can check out a writeup about it here. I'll just say to get there it took about 5 minutes of driving, and then 15 minutes easy walking. There's a great pool above the whole falls complex that is good for swimming. It could be possible to climb up the creek itself and get to the bottom pool but we didn't do that so I can't say.
That evening, back in our hotel, we discovered that our English-speaking neighbors we had heard through the door earlier were in fact none other than our old neighbor Michelle and her boyfriend Ben. It was a bit of a surprise to see them, and we all had a good laugh about it. We all hung out on the balcony for a while, watching the sunset, before heading out to enjoy the night. Ben and Michelle were hungry so they had dinner immediately but we went out and wandered around a while, eventually stumbling onto some locals hanging out and the town square. We had some fun with them, riding the little kids cyclo's and just joking and laughing, before eventually getting some dinner and then calling it a night.
QL-49 to Hue
The next morning we were up at a reasonable hour and ready to get on the road. After a nice traditional Hue breakfast [bread and eggs] we checked out and hit the road. The road right out of town is pretty rough, but once you reach the top, the road changes and it's nice for quite a while. It's really interesting to drive out of A Luoi; it doesn't take long to climb up to the pass on the east side of town, but once over it takes quite a bit of time to get all the way down. It's only after doing so that you realize how much of a hanging valley the A Shau Valley is. The scenery, while not jaw-dropping like the day before, was still great.
Down the road a ways, we drove through a really interesting section of road. It climbed up a small hill, past several large clumps of bamboo growing right next to the road. However, a scant 200 meters around the corner and the road went through a beautiful grove of tall and magnificent pine trees! For people from Colorado, these pine trees felt right at home; however, the bamboo in such close proximity was a bit odd. We had seen the same thing in Myanmar, with an extra ante of teak trees mixed in as well. Sadly, they were also in the process of cutting a lot of these pines out.
It was quite hot that morning, so we were really keen to keep making progress towards our hotel and it's swimming pool, so we didn't stop for pictures on the drive out of the foothills into the city. It also didn't help that it was Hue Festival, the biggest event of the year for the city. The city was packed, and we got our first glimpse of it even before we reached the city, as we had to drive right by a famous tomb from the Nguyen Dynasty, which was absolutely mobbed and overrun by tourists. The city was even more crazy, and we quickly passed through, on our way out to the beaches east of Hue, where our hotel was located.
Beach scenery east of Hue (above & below).
Our hotel, the Villa Louise, initially looked like something out of a dream. Beautiful, private villas, scattered throughout the pine trees along the massive sandbar that fronts the beaches along Hue. The bathtub was jacuzzi sized, and it was quiet, peaceful and beautiful. We had a nice swim, a nap, and some downtime, before enjoying dinner at the restaurant. However, by the time we made it back to the room, the villa was still ridiculously hot. The air conditioner was fixed at an extremely high temperature, and while for many people that isn't a big deal, for us from Colorado, it's miserable. We weren't interested in paying for a night of terrible half sleep, so after a long argument with the management, we finally checked out and cruised back in to Hue, where we got the last room at a hotel in the city centre.
Villa Louise, south of Thuan An Beach near Hue.
After breakfast at the hotel the next day, we were eager to be out of busy Hue and back to our own paradise in Da Nang, so we hit the highway and made good time back to the city. Thanks to the festival and the holiday, there were hundreds of people trying to get back to Da Nang that day as well, and the Lang Co side bus terminal for the Hai Van Tunnel was busier than I've ever seen it. Still, they had us through in about 20 minutes, and we were back to our house by early afternoon. It was a great trip all around, and I was super excited to have finally taken Kelsey in the loop through A Luoi. I'm embarrassed to say but it was our first long-term motorbike trip together, just the two of us, in Vietnam after five years. However, it was a great trip, so we're going to feel good about it. Thanks for reading!
All photos copyright Kit Davidson.