Motor biking in Vietnam

If you’ve seen the Top Gear Vietnam special then you might have some idea of what riding a bike in Vietnam is like, but in reality, it is way more fun than that. I certainly wouldn’t suggest riding a motorbike in Vietnam unless you are an experienced rider, it really isn’t the place to learn if you want to stay in one piece, but if you are a reasonably confident on a bike then it is a must do experience.

Getting hold of a bike is pretty easy, ask around just about anywhere and someone will rent you a bike for somewhere around AU$10 a day. So far on this trip I have rented bikes in the Phillipines, Cambodia and Vietnam and the only place I have been asked for a licence was in Cambodia where, ironically you don’t actually need one for anything less than 125cc (pretty hard to find anything bigger than that anyway). In the Phillipines a motorcycle licence is even required for a 50cc and in Vietnam it is required for anything over 50cc. I do hold a full motorcycle licence in Australia and the UK and I also have an international driving licence that includes my unrestricted motorcycle licence. I’m not sure that any of this means anything in Vietnam though.

There are plenty of travellers though who don’t hold a licence or have any motorcycling experience that go ahead and hire one anyway. It is very easy to get an automatic scooter that is extremely easy to ride and off you go. Maybe I am just getting old and sensible but it just doesn’t seem like a very good idea to me. OK, a licence might be largely meaningless in a country where the equivalent of a few dollars will buy you out of any problems with the police, but experience of how to ride defensively on a bike doesn’t come overnight and although plenty of people have a great time and have no problems, plenty also seem to mange to come off, mostly sustaining fairly minor injuries but some don’t fair so well, and of course, when it comes to the crunch, riding with no licence means you are not legal, which means that your travel insurance may well not cover you in the case of a serious incident.

Now, all that said, if you have a bit of experience and a licence, then getting around by bike is the way to travel in Vietnam. It’s what the locals do and the country is set up for it very well. As James May said, ‘if you don’t have a motorbike in Vietnam, you are nobody ‘. There are plenty of bike only lanes in the cities, great coffee stops where you can lie in a hammock and sip an iced latte, and everywhere you go there are guarded parking facilities for bikes that work extremely well, usually costing a few cents (1000-2000 dong) but often free and you can usually park inside your hotel lobby. And as for the roads, well they may not be in the best condition but there are some truly stunning roads in the highlands and around the coastline. And it is pretty amazing to see what can be carried on a bike and how many people you can get on one….who needs a station wagon to pick up a fridge when you’ve got a bike!

We have done plenty of day trips from a variety of cities around the county, but one of our highlights has been a three day trip from Da Lat in the central highlands. We rode from Da Lat down a stunning mountain road through the Vinh Hy-Binh Thien pass to the coast and stayed in a place called Phan Rang. At the moment this route and destination seems not to have come to the attention of western tourists but is very much on the agenda for the Vietnamese. The road was very busy with bike traffic, all loaded up with luggage for a weekend away at the beach. Phan Rang itself is a beach resort town waiting to be discovered by foreigners. It is full of hotels and resorts and is clearly a favourite destination for the Vietnamese, but we were pretty much the only westerners in town.

The next day we rode the coastal route from Phan Rang up to Nha Trang. This is billed by the Vietnamese as the best coastal drive in the country, but again, is not really on the tourist map for foreigners. Once again, the road was busy with Vietnamese bikers, but very few cars and no foreign tourists. This road winds it’s way along coastal cliffs through a stunning national park called Nui Chua. Nha Trang however is very much on the tourist map and is full of high rise hotels and Dong extraction schemes. It actually looks a lot like the Gold Coast except that our beaches are much cleaner.

On the third day we found a different route back up the mountain to Da Lat. This was another awesome mountain road passing through small villages, rice fields and fantastic scenery.

We have some amazing roads for motorcycles in Australia, but what I have ridden in Vietnam so far at least equals if not surpasses what we have at home. Smaller bikes are definitely the way to go here though which does make for a very different experience. At home I ride a 1,000cc Ducati with an insane and largely unusable amount of torque and power (if you want to stay alive and out of jail), whereas here the biggest bike I have ridden is 150cc. Honestly though, that is big enough in Vietnam. The roads and the traffic here are just so unpredictable that more power would just lead to death. Traffic moves very slowly anyway so a big bike would just be frustrating. Speed limits in the city are only 40kmh and even out on the open road 60 seems to be the norm.

One of our many day trips was out of Hoi An to ride the Hai Van pass. This one was made famous by Top Gear and is billed as one of the most stunning roads in Vietnam. It is certainly an awesome ride, and being able stop at the stop and wander around ruins from the Vietnam war makes it even more spectacular. But, for a biker, it isn’t any better than some of the ‘undiscovered’ roads and the fact that it is full of tourist buses and backpackers riding motorbikes in shorts, t-shirts and thongs/flip flops/sandals does kind of detract from the experience a little.

And on the subject of riding in shorts, it really isn’t a good idea. OK maybe around town at 40kmh isn’t so bad and I am guilty of that, but the result of coming off on a bend at 60 in shorts isn’t pretty and I have seen plenty of tourists limping around with less skin than they arrived in Vietnam with. In fact only this morning I was chatting to a French couple who thought it would be fun to get a bike. No licence, no experience, wearing shorts…..whoops, not such a good idea after all.

Car ownership in Vietnam is still extremely low, and long may it stay that way. The cities are already congested and chaotic with motorcycle traffic, but I just can’t imagine what it would be like if all those bikes were upgraded to cars. Ho Chi Min city (Saigon) would just be a giant car park with no room left for anything else. There would certainly be no point trying to drive anywhere as there would just be no room left for any traffic movement. Perhaps we could learn a thing or two in Australia! More bikes and fewer cars, we have the climate for it. Just imagine, easier parking, less congested cities, less pollution. On a daily commute in our Aussie cities I reckon that somewhere around 80% of vehicles have one occupant, just imagine the positive impact of replacing all those cars with bikes.

I really would love to come back here one day with some biker buddies and ride from one end of the country to the other. Next year maybe.