Marco Polo North Vietnam Beaten Track Trek

My husband, daughter(27) and I set out on this 7 day trip in early May. It was very easy to organise online before we arrived in Vietnam. Everything went very smoothly from the moment we were collected in Hanoi. We drove North to Ba Be Lake where we stayed the night and then on to near the border with China where we started trekking between the villages, staying in home stays along the way. We loved every minute of this. We were well looked after by our Guides, Joe (from Marco Polo) and Chuong ( local govt guide). We had expected to carry our own packs and were surprised to find that they were carried for us on motorbikes by the same men who would cook for us. It was a welcome surprise as it was quite hot and we were glad not to have the extra weight. Being vegetarians we were very pleased with the effort to accommodate our food needs, which was done very well. Joe is a history graduate and we learnt so much about Vietnam and its history. It was really good to stay in the houses of locals, meet people and to actually be off the beaten track. Chuong had huge local knowledge of the plants, animals and way of life. What a great team they were. The terrain was roughly like home, NZ, with hills and valleys with nothing very hard but you would need to be a walker to enjoy this. Be prepared for some rudimentary bathrooms, or lack of, but that is how people live here, don’t let it put you off as we highly recommend both this trek and Marco Polo adventures.