Northern Vietnam: motorbike, or a car with a driver?

This article sets out all three honestly, with the actual distances and the actual hours, so you can decide before you are standing in a rental shop in Ha Giang city being handed a set of keys and a helmet that does not fit.

The three ways to travel the north

1. Self-drive. You rent a semi-automatic or manual bike and ride the loop yourself.
2. Easy rider. You sit on the back of a bike with an experienced local rider who knows the road.
3. Private car and driver. An air-conditioned vehicle, a driver, and the ability to stop where you like.

We book options two and three. We do not book option one, and we would rather explain why than take the booking.

Why we will not organise a self-drive motorbike trip

This is not squeamishness. It is four specific problems, and each one is enough on its own.

Your licence is very probably not valid. A foreign driving licence, and in most cases an International Driving Permit issued under the 1949 convention, does not by itself entitle you to ride a motorbike in Vietnam. The legal route is a Vietnamese conversion, which takes time and paperwork and which almost nobody who rents a bike for three days has done. Riding without a valid licence is riding illegally, and every consequence downstream of an accident, medical, financial and legal, flows from that fact.

The road surface is not the problem, the road users are. Vietnam’s road fatality rate is among the highest in Southeast Asia and the overwhelming majority of casualties are on two wheels. The QL4C over the Ma Pi Leng pass is tarmac and it is well engineered. It is also single lane in places, with loaded trucks, buffalo, children, gravel spills after rain and a drop to the Nho Que river of several hundred feet with no barrier.

Help is far away. The far north is four to seven hours from the nearest hospital with a trauma unit. On the Du Gia stretch you can ride for forty minutes without seeing a settlement. A broken collarbone in Hanoi is an inconvenience. The same injury above Meo Vac is a serious logistical event.

We would be liable for a decision we cannot supervise. We build trips we can stand behind and support from our Hanoi office. We cannot supervise a rider we have never seen ride, on a bike we have not inspected, on a road where our ability to help is measured in hours.

People do ride the loop themselves, thousands of them every year, and most of them come home with a very good story. We are not telling you it cannot be done. We are telling you that we will not be the company that arranges it, and that if you plan to do it independently you should go into it knowing the four points above rather than discovering them afterwards.

Option two: the easy rider

This is what we book for most people who want the north on two wheels, and it is genuinely excellent.

You ride pillion behind a local rider, usually a man in his thirties or forties from Ha Giang or a nearby province, who has ridden these roads since he was a teenager. Your bag goes in a truck or is strapped to the bike. He picks the line, reads the traffic, knows which corner has gravel this week and where to stop for the view that is not in anyone’s photograph. Riders are typically arranged through the local operator our Hanoi office works with, and we ask for the same handful of people by name.

What it is like. Five to six hours on the back of a bike is tiring in a way people underestimate. Your hips and lower back take it, the wind is loud, and conversation is limited to stops. Bring a proper jacket, because at 4,500 feet in October the mornings are cold, and expect at least one day of rain between March and September.

Who it suits. Anyone comfortable with sustained physical discomfort in exchange for a completely open view. It is the best way to experience the plateau, and it is what most of our riders under fifty choose.

Who it does not. Bad backs, knee replacements, anyone travelling with a child under about twelve, and anyone who wants to read or nap between stops.

Option three: the private car with driver

The same route, seen through glass, with air conditioning, a boot for luggage and a driver who will stop and wait as long as you want.

The honest trade-off is that on the Ma Pi Leng section the car is slightly worse. The pass is narrow, the pull-in points are small, and a bike can stop anywhere while a car has to find somewhere to put itself. Everywhere else, the car is comfortable, and on the long link days it is a great deal better.

The compromise we build most often on our Ha Giang and the north route is a hybrid: car for the long link days, bikes for the two days that genuinely reward being outside. That is usually the right answer, and it costs less than four days of riders.

Northern Vietnam motorbike or car: the real distances and hours

These are the numbers that matter, and they are the ones that surprise people. Northern Vietnamese roads are slow. Assume an average of 20 to 25 miles an hour on the plateau and 30 to 35 miles an hour on the main highways, before stops.

Two things follow from that table. First, the Hanoi to Ha Giang transfer is a long day whichever way you travel, which is why we usually run it as a sleeper transfer or an early car and treat it as a travel day rather than pretending it is sightseeing. Second, the loop itself is short in miles and long in hours. Four riding days covering 220 miles (350 km) sounds gentle. It is not, because almost none of it is fast.

What we build, in practice

For a first visit to the north, the shape that works is three nights on the loop rather than two, with the Ma Pi Leng day kept short so there is time to walk down to the Nho Que gorge and take the boat. Two nights makes the second day a seven-hour push and you will remember the seat rather than the view.

We also put a rest day in Ha Giang city or, better, in Pu Luong on the way back, because arriving in Hanoi the evening before an international flight after a full loop day is a bad plan and we have seen it go wrong.

Plan this trip

Tell us your dates and how you feel about two wheels, and a Vietnam specialist will send you a first outline of the north. Free, written for you, no obligation.

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Keep reading

• Vietnam, the complete guide to planning your trip
• Ha Giang and the north in 14 days
• Classic Vietnam in 16 days
• Ha Long, Bai Tu Long or Lan Ha? An honest comparison
• What does a trip to Vietnam cost?

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