There are so many different ways to get around and experience a foreign country while you're traveling. You can walk, ride a bicycle, drive a car or fly from point to point. Each has its own pros and cons. Walking is perhaps the best way to connect with the people and fully take in the landscapes, but takes a really long time to get from point to point and if you're doing a several week long distance walk, it can require a lot of logistical planning. Riding a bicycle is slow enough to take in all the surroundings and is a much faster pace than walking, but still on the slower side if you're trying to cover a lot of kilometers. Going by car or airplane is quick and efficient but pretty much the entire ride is a blur and you really don't stop and experience much along the way. If all those traditional means of transport seem to compromise too much in one area or another, how is it riding a motorbike?
I find that one of the great advantages of traveling around a country by motorbike is the pace. You can go quickly, but still feel the wind against you, have a 360 degree view of the landscapes all around, and it's really easy to pull over and interact with everything that you come across. And unlike walking or riding a normal bicycle, you can still cover a couple hundred kilometers each day. Going by motorbike is also a lot less strenuous than by foot or bicycle, which is either a positive or negative depending on how keen you are for the exercise. As effortless as a motorbike is comparatively, there's no escaping the inevitable sore butt.
Getting a Motorbike
The easiest place to buy a motorbike is in either Ho Chi Minh or Hanoi. Usually you can get a decent used motorbike for around $400 USD. Ask expats or locals you trust where to look in order to get the best deals. If you just show up at a small motorbike shop, be aware that you might have a couple extra hundred added on to the price if you have a foreign face.
One thing you'll notice about the Vietnamese culture is that people feel quite free about tricking others. Honesty isn't a value that is given the same importance that you might be used to in the culture come from. I found this general attitude towards honesty to be the case from my own personal experience and it was an overwhelming consensus amongst all the expats I spoke to. It doesn't necessarily mean how they conduct business is wrong, it's just different. Everyone knows that's how things operate and adjust accordingly.
For instance, while I was in Saigon, I went with a friend to pick up their Vespa from the mechanic, and to her surprise, not only was her once full tank, empty, but all of her fancy Vespa bolts were exchanged for old rusty brand-less ones. Lucky for her, she'd been living in Saigon for a few years and knew the necessity of watching out for these kinds of things. She also knew how to play the game, and knew they would never admit on their own to having stolen them and couldn't straight forward accuse. So she gave a few smiles, laughs, and gave an occasional outburst yelling to show she was serious, until finally the mechanic opened a desk drawer and acted completely surprised to see these shiny new Vespa bolts like, "Oh, what are these doing here? I have no idea how these could have ended up in my desk drawer. I'll make sure to exchange these right away."
If you're looking to rent a motorbike instead of buying, there are many tour operators that will not only rent you one, but provide a full itinerary and even a driver. If at all possible I'd recommend avoiding this option as its way less flexible and exciting. But naturally it will still be a great time and something to consider if you are too intimidated to do the journey on your own. Most of these tour operators are in Dalat or Nha Trang, but you can find something similar in pretty much every city you go.
While it is possible to rent just the motorbike itself without a driver or itinerary and drop it off at some later location, it's not something that businesses are used to doing and you may be more limited in regards to time or which routes you can take.
The vast majority of vehicles on Vietnamese streets are motorbikes.
Ho Chi Minh (Saigon)
This is truly the wildest city I have ever ridden a motorbike. Having had experience on a motorbike for several months in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, I was at a point where I thought there was nothing that I couldn't take on. Then I landed in Saigon. Nothing could prepare me for what my eyes would behold. It was truly a sea of motorbikes weaving in and out of 5 lane roundabouts. One way streets are in name only, as they appear to stop no one from going the other direction on the outer lanes. There were so many motorbikes on the streets that it reminded me of how a school of sardines synchronize their travel through the ocean. And if the motorbikes were sardines, than the trucks and buses were the whales that everybody got out of the way for.
You learn this lesson quickly as a mere pedestrian trying to cross the street. Even if you see dozens of motorbikes approaching and no sign of any gaps ever emerging, you can still cross the street regardless, as long as you walk at a steady pace. All of the motorbikes will weave around you. But that is certainly not the case with the trucks and buses in Vietnam. They never slow down for anything or anyone, plummeting down the roads like freight trains. To be fair, they do show the politeness to honk a horn that has about the same decibel range as an ambulance. So, perhaps that makes up for their reckless ways?
If you start out your travels in Saigon like I did and start to question whether or not this whole motorbike journey was a bad idea, don't get too discouraged. It only gets better from here. And by that I don't just mean on your Vietnam journey, but pretty much anywhere else in the world, save for a few places in India. If you can do it in Saigon, you can do it pretty much anywhere.
Before leaving Saigon in the dust, make sure not to miss out on all the local eats. There are a lot of cafes and restaurants hidden in old French colonial buildings that are waiting to be discovered. Some of the most unique and very "Saigon" places, you won't necessarily see from the street. It might require walking through an unmarked door, walking through a maze like corridor, riding an ancient post-war elevator, and then lo and behold, the entrance to the trendiest rooftop café in town. To find these places, look online or see if you can meet an expat or local that can give you some insider advice.
Woman weaving silk near the town of Dalat
Dalat
This is a French Colonial Hill Station that is a great place to stop along the way. It is almost like being warped into a town somewhere in Europe because of the French architecture, hills, lakes, and climate. The temperature is much cooler than the rest of Vietnam because of its elevation, so it's a great place to cool down before continuing your journey. I was lucky enough to be introduced to an expat that lives in Dalat who is married to a woman from one of the local tribes. They operate a coffee plantation together and roast their own coffee beans. Together, we went for a hike up one of the mountains in the area and searched for non-poisonous mushrooms along the journey. Not sure if I'd recommend the mushroom picking without someone who knows what they're doing, but the hike to the top of the mountain was a great in between activity.
Another fun activity to do in Dalat is abseiling down waterfalls. The price recently shot up as it is now managed by foreign investors, which is an absolute shame, but doesn't change the fact that it really is a great place to abseil.
You'll come across hillside tribes and beautiful landscapes all along your journey.
Ninh Binh
I've motorbiked through a lot of incredible landscapes over the years and have to say Ninh Binh is the most impressive landscape I've ever ridden through by motorbike in my life was here, around this area. The only place I can say comes anywhere close is a drive near Bajawa, a small town on the Indonesian Island of Flores. Riding through the Ninh Binh area is basically like going through the towering limestone cliffs of Ha Long Bay, which obviously can only be experienced as a passenger on a boat. But here, you can experience those same dramatic cliffs on your left and right as you zoom along paved roads on your motorbike.
Boy riding a buffalo in Blank, a small village located a few kilometers outside Sapa.
Sapa Rice Terraces
After a long journey on your motorbike, this is a great place to end your journey, relax and unwind. The views here are stunning and the atmosphere is very peaceful. Although the tourism infrastructure is rapidly expanding, the people here are still very much living off the land and in a very natural way. You'll see little kids guiding buffalo along the hillside, locals harvesting the rice fields, and tribes that still weave their own clothes. Just be prepared for the impossibility of turning down a horde of really smiley and big eyed kids trying to sell you blankets.
As exhausting as it is to deal with all the locals selling handicrafts in this particular area, there is still a lot of traditional life to experience if you are willing to walk a bit further away from the main spots. While walking one hillside, I was invited together with a few others into a local family's home, offered hot tea and sat together in their humble but cozy shack for about an hour or two, which was quite a feat considering we didn't even speak each other's language.
Inside the home of a hilltribe family.
One area that I would recommend getting accommodation in is in the small town of Blank, which is only a short motorbike ride away from the actual town of Sapa. There are very cheap guesthouses that overlook the rice terraces and are in good range to a lot of walking trails.
Unloading the Bike after the Trip
One thing to keep in mind is that if you were considering continuing your journey into Cambodia or Laos with the same motorbike, that may prove challenging. For whatever reason, Vietnamese registered motorbikes are supposed to be kept within the country and they lose a lot of value in other parts of Southeast Asia. I met one couple that managed to get it into Laos with their Vietnamese motorbike, but were turned back at the Laos / Cambodian border. They even tried bribing to no avail. In Cambodia of all places! I'm happy to hear the Cambodian official did the right thing not succumbing to a bribe, but it still sucked for those travelers.
So similar to how it was when you bought, its best to sell your motorbike in Hanoi or Saigon with more potential buyers. One great way to sell is by putting up fliers or asking around at your hostel or guesthouse. You might be able to part with your motorbike that way. Otherwise you can always sell it at a local motorbike shop for half its worth.
Before you leave the country for good, don't forget to try out a Vietnamese egg coffee!
