This post covers my bicycle trip from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) to Hanoi in Vietnam and gives a few bits of advice to people who are planning on doing the same thing.

It might also help people who are planning to do the same trip in the other direction, from Hanoi to Saigon. Otherwise, it might also help people who are planning on doing a bicycle trip in other parts of Vietnam.

The idea is just to give some practical information that might help people with planning. I won’t going into too much detail about my actual experience or give any kind of detailed itinerary that people might follow. I’ll just share some of the useful things I learnt about cycling in Vietnam, so people can use that info to do their own thing.

I’ll also mention some things I’ve learnt about cycle touring in general.

The advice will probably be most helpful to amateurs more than experienced bicycle travellers.

Here’s a map of the route I took. I hugged the coast to be near the beach.

You can go inland as well. It’s hilly as hell, and I also prefer beaches.

The Weather and Time of Year in Vietnam

I made a big mistake, and I didn’t do any research into the weather in Vietnam before I set off. It was cool enough, so I thought everything would be fine. I found out on the second day, however, as I turned directly north from Vung Tau that there’s a headwind in Vietnam you need to plan for.

As I understand it, from October to March, the prevailing wind comes from the north, blowing towards the south. From April to September, it goes the other way.

The wind was less strong in the morning, but at about 12:00 every day it would really pick up. It was a strong and continuous wind, and it slowed me down quite a bit. It was so strong one time I had to peddle downhill. It made cycling much more tiring, it slowed me down a fair amount, and it was also just annoying. Wind sort of changes all the time and messes you around.

So, I’d kind of messed up. But what I did was get through it by starting very early in the morning (about 5:30 or 6) and then cycling hard until 12:00ish, when the wind picked up. It was quite predictable in terms of timing. Then I’d just slow down and only do something like 30 km in the afternoon. I also tried to take a slightly inland route where possible to get away from the worst wind on the coast.

I was lucky, and I escaped the wind after about 7 or 8 days. I think I was on the shoulder season of it, and it just naturally faded away. At the same time, I also made progress north and got out of the worst area.

Anyway, I think the direction of the wind at the time of year can dictate the direction of Vietnamese cycle tours. It’s worth doing some research into this. It may be less of a problem inland, and some parts of the country may be better or worse than others at certain times of year.

At the time, I found this post that said all tours should go south from October to March and north for the rest of the year. Wikipedia is also a good source of information, and there’s this post on kitesurfing in Vietnam as well.

How Much Time Do You Need?

As I said, I took about 6 weeks to complete this tour. I was digital nomadding at the time, so I sort of did it in legs where I’d cycle for about 3 and 4 days. Then I’d stop in a location for a few days to get my work done. I also just stayed in some locations for longer. It all just added up to make a long trip in terms of time.

How Long Do Other People Need?

It’s not a straightforward answer as to how long you need to complete Saigon to Hanoi or Hanoi to Saigon on a bicycle.

It depends on how fast you want to go. If you rushed it, you could probably do it in about 3 weeks. That would be going fast, though. You’d have to make an effort to cover a decent amount of ground each day, and you wouldn’t have many spare days for sightseeing and things like that.

My guess is that 4-5 weeks is about right for most people.

How Far Should You Go Each Day?

The total distance is about 1750 km.

I spoke to some other bicycle tourers one time, and we thought that about 80 km per day is about the right distance to aim for on a cycle tour. That’s because it’s probably better to try and slow yourself down rather than speed yourself up. It’s actually quite easy to go too fast and miss the country you’re travelling through.

Not only do you simply cover more ground, but if you cycle quickly, you also start to focus more on the actual cycling and not the places you’re going through. You’re more tired and you’re thinking more about cycling than anything else.

It’s all open to interpretation, though. I like to exercise myself sometimes, and sometimes I just like to listen to music and just switch off and cycle.

The location of hotels and towns also dictates events to quite a degree.

Personally, I probably averaged about 100 km per day on this trip.

What Kind of Bicycle?

I’ve spoken about bicycles with other cycle tourers before as well. Other people seem to like expensive bikes with fancy tech and stuff. I don’t think there’s any point in it, though. If it makes you travel 10% faster, all that means on a bicycle tour is that you arrive at wherever you’re finishing in the evening slightly earlier.

For the same amount of effort, you might get there say 45 minutes earlier or something like that.

I don’t really see the point, and the other problem is that you might worry about your bike getting stolen or needing to fix complicated parts.

I bought this bike for about $65 I think in Saigon from some guy on the street.

Reliability is Important

The only thing I think your bike needs to be is reliable enough. Most villages or towns in Vietnam have some kind of facilities for fixing a bicycle. You can also fix a lot of things for yourself, but it’s better if you’re not having to fix it all the time.

My bike wasn’t reliable, in fact, because of the wheels. They were low quality, and I also had quite heavy luggage all loaded on the back. I bent the back wheel on the first set of wheels with the weight, and I also destroyed the front wheel on a pot hole. I bought 2 new wheels and also bent the back one on that set at the end of the trip.

I ended up adjusting spokes quite frequently throughout the trip. I also had 3 separate days where I had to sort of limp in a long distance on wheels. I was always wondering if the wheels were about to just fold in on themselves.

It can be fun like that, but it can also get messy.

So think cheap but reliable, I think.

Size and Comfort is Also Important

Another thing that I’ve found important is getting a bike that’s comfortable and the right size. By comfortable, I mainly mean that the saddle is okay for long days and the handle bars are comfortable. Two grip positions is a good idea.

Size is slightly more complicated. You should look up the actual correct size bicycle for your own dimensions. It might not seem like a big deal at first, but after a few days it can become a real problem if you’re cramped up or on a bike that’s too big.

There’s a quick guide you can use here.

Take a Few Tools

It’s a good idea to take a few tools. I just take the basic things, and then if I can’t fix something myself, I just plan to get a lift on a truck or something like that.

I took:

• A spare inner tube
• A puncture repair kit and a pump
• A spanner
• Some pliers
• A spoke tool and spare spokes (after the wheels started falling apart)

Navigation

Just get a smartphone with Google Maps. You can use Google Maps with a phone in airplane mode, in case that helps. That’s definitely true on an iPhone, although I’m not sure about other phones.

Look for Side Roads

A general point is to look for roads that run parallel to the main road. The main roads that connect North and South Vietnam are busy. They’re mainly just noisy and unpleasant rather than dangerous in my experience, but it’s much better to avoid them.

Cycling on the quieter local roads is a completely different experience to cycling on the main roads. I wouldn’t really want to do a big bicycle tour if I was on big roads all the time.

Main Roads Can Be Useful

One thing to note, however, is that main roads are useful if you want to go quickly. They’re straighter, less hilly, and they have smoother surfaces. It makes quite a difference if you need to go quickly.

Good Destinations En Route

There are quite a few famous destinations on the route.

The well-known places I stopped at en route were:

• Saigon
• Vung Tau
• Mui Ne
• Nha Trang
• Hoi An
• Da Nang
• Hue
• Ninh Binh
• Hanoi

The popular destinations tend to be clustered slightly in areas at the south and in the centre. As a result, there are some fairly long stretches where you won’t see many other travellers, and you find yourself in places with only locals. The well-known destinations have most of the interesting sites, and there are other travellers to talk to. But it’s also interesting to be in less well-known places as well.

Between Nha Trang and Hue is one stretch where you’ll mainly just be with the locals, and between Da Nang and Ninh Binh is another.

Some less well-known places I liked were:

• Quy Nhon – This is a big town with quite a lot going on.
• Vinh – there’s a lake you can walk around in the evening, and people bought me drinks and invited me to sit with them. There were also some big raves going on.
• Dong Hoi
• The coast in the Nha Trang area
• The coast north of Da Nang
• The countryside in the north

There are also some other really nice stretches of coastal road that come up occasionally, particularly in southern Vietnam. Also in areas of the centre. I’d say the scenery is less nice in the north, although if you go inland towards rural areas it tends to be better.

One thing to note is that Dalat is close to the route I took. I decided not to divert for it because it’s 1500 m up, but it’s a popular destination

General Travel in Vietnam

The Vietnamese people are very friendly and helpful. If I had a problem getting my SIM card to work or something, people would go out of their way to help me. They’d ring their friends up or something if they couldn’t fix it themselves. People also like to talk to you sometimes and generally check that you’re okay. They’re also quite fun. I had a night of karaoke on the trip in one place, and I was also bought drinks a fair few times, taken to a few places and things like that.

The language barrier does make things difficult on a lot of occasions, but overall, Vietnam’s a good place to be a traveller.