2-Day Cao Bang Motorbike Tour: Angel Eye Mountain Hike, Ban Gioc, Craft Villages

Two days on a motorbike, with the safety gear fitted at a local base before departure: helmet, knee and elbow pads, and the paperwork. The first morning goes straight to Mount Angel Eye, also called Nui Thung, the mountain with a hole through it, 50 meters across and 50 meters above the ground. Weather permitting, the group drives or walks into the valley and hikes up to the opening. The valley lies among the Thang Hen lakes of the Non Nuoc Cao Bang UNESCO Global Geopark, with wide grasslands in the dry season and green lakes in the rainy season. The afternoon crosses Phong Nam Valley, with farmers in the fields and grazing buffalo, and climbs to a viewpoint above Ngoc Con. Truc Lam Buddhist temple on Phia Nham mountain gives a view over the valley, Ban Gioc and the Chinese border at about 4:30. The night is in a nearby homestay, with dinner. Day two begins at Nguom Ngao Cave (Tiger Cave in the Tay language), with chambers, stairs and corridors and stalactites shaped like a coral reef, a ship, a waterfall and terraced fields. At about 10:00 a raft goes to Ban Gioc, the fourth-largest transnational waterfall in the world, shared by Vietnam and China. The afternoon turns to craft: the knife and tool forges of Phuc Sen, the paper makers of Dia Tren, where 65 households make paper from bark, and Phia Thap, where incense is dried along the village roads. The tour ends with a drop-off at the hotel in Cao Bang City.