This adventurous journey northeast begins as you depart from your Hanoi hotel around 8:00 AM. You drive up and pass through the undulating terrain of tea plantations in Thai Nguyen city. Stop to visit the tea farm and learn the process of tea making, you might want to try their work before our lunch at the local house here. Afterwards, you continue on moving through many other villages and getting your first glimpses of rural Vietnam. Depending on the traffic conditions, you arrive at Ba Be Lake at around 4:00 PM. After checking into a basic guest house in Pac Ngoi, you are free to walk around the village and meet some of the local Tay people. Dinner with the host while having a chat with them to learn about their lives before retiring to sleep.

Today, you spend the whole day visiting the beauty of the Ba Be lakes on local canoes, but first you head out to the boat docs. Board our small boat, then glide along the river and through the pretty cave. Lunch is served near a beautiful waterfall. After lunch, you canoe your heart out navigating into the tranquilly of the Ba Be lakes. Following activities include some swimming and trekking to visit some of the ethnic minorities. Van pick-up; then transfer back to our homestay. Dinner, free time to learn culture and customs

Taking the time to enjoy the morning and surroundings we have breakfast leisurely before taking one last walk into the park or an option to visit the cave on motorbike if you wish to try. Then, you say goodbye to our host family by 10:30 AM for a scenic 2.5 hour drive towards Cao Bang –home to several ethnic minority groups including Hmong, Dao, THo and Nung. You have lunch on the way then continue driving to Cao Bang town in the afternoon. Arrive in the late afternoon, check in, and take a short rest before dinner at a local restaurant. Free time to relax. Overnight in Cao Bang town.

Wake up at 8:00 AM! Head out of town and you start venturing into the most remote northern regions of Cao Bang Province. Well paved roads (about 89 km) scenically traverse TrungKhanh before arriving at the Ban Gioc Waterfall – the biggest waterfall in Vietnam (though not full of water in the dry season). There is an enormous cave that has two main entrances and one branch reaching almost all the way to the waterfalls where the ‘secret’ entrance hides. On the way back, we can make breaks en route as you wish to visit Nguom Ngao grotto or hill tribe villages. Back to Cao Bang in the late afternoon at around 7:00 PM. Dinner and stay the night in town.

This day is our last day, we leave at 8.00 AM and spend 7 hours driving back to Hanoi (on some of the same routes). We can stop for sightseeing en route at your wishes. Arrive back in Hanoi around 5:00 PM, our adventure ends at your hotel.