Ha Giang Loop Map: Every Stop, Distance and Overnight

A useful Ha Giang Loop map is not a picture of a circle. It is a list of distances, riding times and places you can actually sleep.

The route runs roughly 350km from Ha Giang City, north to the Chinese border and back. Here is every leg, how long each takes on a 110cc bike, and where the overnight stops fall.

Download it offline before you go. Signal disappears for hours at a time, and it disappears in exactly the places where you would want it.

The Ha Giang Loop map, leg by leg

Every Ha Giang Loop map you see online shows the same circuit; the differences are in the timings. These assume photo stops and a 110–125cc bike. Add a third on top in rain or heavy fog.

Leg one: Ha Giang City to Quan Ba

The gentlest 45km of the trip and the right place to get used to the bike before anything demands skill.

Quan Ba Heaven Gate is the first proper viewpoint, looking down over the Twin Mountains and the valley. Most groups stop here about ninety minutes in.

Leg two: Quan Ba to Yen Minh

Pine forest, easier gradients, fewer tourists. The landscape has not turned dramatic yet and this leg gets skipped in most write-ups.

Yen Minh is a functional town rather than a destination. Some three-day itineraries overnight here to shorten day two.

Leg three: Yen Minh to Dong Van

This is where the ground changes character. Grey limestone towers push up through everything and the soil disappears. You are on the Dong Van Karst Plateau, a UNESCO Global Geopark, and it looks like nowhere else in Vietnam.

Worth the detour on this leg:

• Lung Cu Flag Tower — the northernmost point of Vietnam, about 25km off the main route. Adds 1.5 hours round trip.
• Hmong King’s Palace at Sa Phin — a short stop, and more interesting than the name suggests.
• Dong Van Old Quarter — the best atmosphere of any overnight stop on the loop.

Leg four: Ma Pi Leng

Twenty-five kilometres, and the reason people come. The pass has its own entry on Wikipedia for the history of how it was built.

Ma Pi Leng Pass runs along a cliff face several hundred metres above the Nho Que River. The road was cut by hand in the 1960s. It is narrow, it is exposed, and in clear weather it is the finest stretch of road in Vietnam.

Budget more time than the distance suggests. You will stop repeatedly.

The Nho Que River boat trip runs from the bottom of the gorge, roughly 120,000 VND, about an hour. Take it if the weather holds. The descent to the jetty is steep and rough.

Leg five: Meo Vac to Du Gia

The hardest riding on the loop and the leg most three-day itineraries compress or skip.

Surfaces deteriorate. Expect broken tarmac, gravel on the inside of switchbacks, and long stretches with nothing at all. If you are going to be tired anywhere, it is here, and this is where tiredness costs the most.

Du Gia itself is the quietest stop on the route and the one people remember. A waterfall you can swim in, a handful of homestays, and almost no traffic.

This leg is the strongest argument for the four-day version. See the itinerary guide.

Leg six: Du Gia back to Ha Giang City

Mixed surfaces that improve as you drop out of the hills. River valleys, rice terraces, and a gradual return to traffic.

Most tours arrive back mid-afternoon, in time for the evening bus to Hanoi.

Reading the Ha Giang Loop map: clockwise or anticlockwise?

Nearly everyone rides the Ha Giang Loop clockwise, and almost nobody explains why. Vietnam’s tourism board sets out the standard four-day version of the route.

Clockwise puts the easy legs first. You get 100km of decent tarmac to settle into the bike before the plateau, and you cross Ma Pi Leng in the afternoon of day two, when the cloud has usually lifted. It also leaves the roughest surfaces, Meo Vac to Du Gia, for a day when you know the bike.

Anticlockwise reverses that. You hit the worst road first, on day one, on an unfamiliar bike. The argument for it is Ma Pi Leng in morning light, and thinner traffic because you are running against the flow.

Ride clockwise unless you are here specifically to photograph the pass at sunrise. If you are, stay in Meo Vac and ride out to the pass at first light rather than reversing the whole loop.

Detours the Ha Giang Loop map does not show

On a three-day tour you will not get all of these. Pick two, tell your guide on day one, and accept that the rest wait for a four-day trip.

Fuel stops, and the gap no Ha Giang Loop map marks

This catches out independent riders and nobody puts it on a map.

Proper stations are in Ha Giang City, Quan Ba, Yen Minh, Dong Van and Meo Vac. Between them you are relying on roadside sellers with fuel in glass bottles, which works but is not something to plan around.

The gap that matters is Meo Vac to Du Gia. Sixty-five kilometres of rough road with nothing reliable in between. Fill up in Meo Vac before you leave, every time, even if the gauge looks fine.

A 110cc bike does the full loop on roughly three tanks. Fuel is a small part of the budget and running out is a large part of your afternoon.

Checkpoints

The loop runs through designated border areas, and police checkpoints sit at the approaches to the northern districts. Positions move, so treat any list as indicative rather than fixed.

What they ask for is consistent: passport and border area permit. Carry both on you, in paper, not in the bag strapped to the bike.

On a guided tour the guide handles this and you barely notice. Riding independently, expect to stop and expect it to be straightforward if your paperwork is in order.

Climbing and descending

Ha Giang City sits at roughly 100m. The plateau runs between 1,000 and 1,600m, and Ma Pi Leng tops out near 1,500m with the river some 800m below the road.

Two practical effects. Temperature drops noticeably as you climb, and a pleasant morning in town becomes genuinely cold on the plateau by afternoon. And the climbing is continuous rather than in one push, which is why the riding times above look slow for the distances.

Nothing here is high enough for altitude to be a health issue.

Where the overnight stops fall on the Ha Giang Loop map

Meo Vac as a night stop puts you closest to Ma Pi Leng for early light. Details on each in where to sleep on the loop.

Getting the map offline

Download the northern Vietnam region in Google Maps before you leave Ha Giang City, and install Maps.me or Organic Maps as a backup. Both hold minor roads that Google sometimes misses up here.

Two practical notes. Google’s riding times up here are optimistic, sometimes badly so on the Meo Vac to Du Gia leg. And a phone in the cold on a handlebar mount drains fast, so bring a power bank and keep it somewhere warm.

If you are on a tour you do not need to navigate at all. Download it anyway. Groups separate.

One caveat on every time in the table above. They assume a 110cc bike, a dry road and no stopping. Add an hour a day for photographs, because you will stop, and another for rain, because on this route it is rarely a question of whether.

One thing the map will not show you

The entire route runs through designated border areas. Foreign travellers need a border area permit, $10 per person. The procedure record allows five working days in person at the provincial immigration office; in practice riders are handed it the same morning, and tour operators pre-arrange it.

Checkpoints along the loop have been asking for it since mid-2026. In practice you let your tour operator arrange it. Full detail in the main Ha Giang Loop guide.

Ha Giang Loop Map FAQ

Distances and riding times are approximate and reflect conditions in August 2026. Road surfaces here change quickly.