The Dong Van district’s Hmong villages and spectacular peaks remain so isolated, foreign tourists are all but unknown.

Google the name “Dong Van” and you won’t find much. Until 2013, this mountainous frontier district in Vietnam’s northeast corner was under military control and in order to visit, foreigners required special permits that were notoriously difficult to get. “Tourists in Vietnam – if they want to see mountains, they go to Sapa in the northwest,” said Anh Tuan Nguyen, the director of Mototours Asia, a company that offers motorcycle trips throughout the north of Vietnam. “The problem with Sapa is the people are now used to tourists and they are not too interested in being friendly to them.

But in Dong Van, the people are still wearing traditional clothes and living traditional lifestyles and are very happy to see you.” With that in mind, I set out from the traffic-choked capital Hanoi on an eight-day guided road trip to Dong Van, riding a vintage Royal Enfield 500cc Bullet motorcycle – and eager to visit a part of Vietnam few foreigners have ever seen. (Ian Lloyd Neubauer)