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KLR600
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 Posted: 21:26 - 23 Feb 2014  Post subject: KLR Does The Hai Van Pass - Vietnam (Of Top Gear Fame) |
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TL:DR - I went to S.E. Asia and rode a hire bike over the Hai Van Pass that was in the Top Gear Vietnam special.
As I mentioned a few months ago in some of my posts (well, most of them actually!) I got married in July and for our honeymoon we decided that we’d do a few months travelling around South East Asia. My wife Eileen had been to Thailand and Vietnam before but it was my first time in the continent. I’m always looking for ways to involve bikes in anything that I can and we briefly fluttered with the idea of doing the whole length of Vietnam by bike but the fact that Eileen has next to no experience on bikes, the Asian roads are notoriously bad and that it’s actually ridiculously cheap to buy open bus tickets for the length of Vietnam we decided not do the whole lot on bikes.
I was keen to do the Hai Van Pass by bike having seen it on Top Gear and as the two major towns either side of the pass were the shortest distance on our open bus ticket we decided to look into one way bike hire for that leg of the trip. We’d already been in Asia for about 3 months by the time we got to Hoi An and I’d already hired various bikes and mopeds a few times on the trip so I knew what to expect with the roads.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_7598_zps81c0f7a0.jpg
Some of the bikes I hired in Asia - The more eagle eyed among you may notice Bonny in that photo!
We started our journey by bike in Hoi An. It’s a traditional old Vietnamese town that has been named a UNESCO world heritage site. We spent a few days looking around and taking in the sights:
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Due to licensing laws in Vietnam, the biggest bikes that are mostly available are around 150/160cc commuter style bikes. Almost everyone in Asia has a Honda Cub or some equivalent and there isn't much demand for anything bigger probably due to the expense and difficulty of getting the proper license and the actual cost of big bikes being out of most peoples reach. We found a company that would rent us a Suzuki EN150A for $40 a day which included baggage forwarding so we wouldn't have to worry about strapping two massive bags to the bike. It might not sound too expensive but when you consider that you can hire a step through semi-automatic 125cc moped for $5 almost everywhere in Asia it turned out to be fairly steep! I did want the biggest bike I could get my hands on though so we stumped up and picked the bike up at about 8am.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_7793_zpsbc9ef01a.jpg
150cc's of pure torque! Bit of a step down from my ZRX1100 though...
It’s always important to have a good breakfast before a days riding and there are so many stalls on the streets of Asia selling very cheap and traditional breakfasts.
I opted for a traditional Asian bacon cheeseburger, chips and a coke while Eileen had a traditional cheese and ham toastie.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_7790_zps3a1dc193.jpg
I spent the previous evening scoping out our route and I knew we'd be passing through Da Nang, over the Hai Van Pass then heading on up to Hue where we'd drop the bike off. In total the route was about 135km which by UK terms is not much at all but I thought it'd be a good idea to budget a whole day for the ride allowing for stops and the questionable road conditions.
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After breakfast we filled the tank (it cost us $14 for about 12 litres, Asians always supply hire bikes that are running on fumes!) and headed for Da Nang. After about 10 minutes I noticed a moped in my mirror that seemed to be matching our pace exactly. I did a few speed up/slow down tests and decided that this person was definitely following us so I pulled over and pretended to need something out of our bag. We’d heard of a lot of scams where hire companies send out thieves to steal their own bikes back then charge the punters for new ones so I was erring on the side of caution. It turned out that it was an old woman who’d been following us from Hoi An as she wanted to try and sell us a tour of the local attractions. We politely declined then carried on but she persisted in following us. Despite her being an old woman it was quite un-nerving being followed as you never know if it’s a setup for a bigger scam. Eventually we pulled over again and told her bluntly that if she carried on following us we'd be calling the police and she seemed to get the message and left us alone. We quickly got used to street vendors desperately trying to sell any foreign looking person tours of the local area but we weren't expecting to be followed out of a town for about 15kms just to be sold a tour! It was an odd way to start the day to say the least.
After a few more kilometres we reached our first viewpoint. The Marble Mountain.
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The guy in the hire shop had told us we should check it out but it was a bit of a let-down to be honest. It was something like $10 each to go up an elevator to a temple on the hill and whole area surrounding the hill had been turned into a bit of a shanty town selling lots of generic tourist tat. We didn't bother heading up and decided instead to carry on up to Da Nang.
It didn't take us long to get to Da Nang as the road between Hoi An and Da Nang is pretty good as far as Vietnamese roads go. Da Nang was nice but seemed to be right in the middle of a massive development with hotels of all sizes being built along the seafront clearly looking to take advantage of the booming tourist trade.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_7803_zpsc24c33db.jpg
The beach at Da Nang
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Lots of this stuff being built all over Vietnam at the moment
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The beast at the beach!
Eileen and I reflected that it’s a shame that so many of these major hotel resorts seem to be opening up all over Vietnam. It would be a shame for the country to lose its authenticity to these beach resorts but at the same time if the demand and money wasn't there I suppose they wouldn't be being built. I can’t really blame the country for exploiting opportunities like this to re-build itself, especially keeping recent history in mind.
In the distance we spied the Bodhisattva of Mercy Statue so we decided to take a ride down the promenade and take a look.
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The bike prays for a safe passage over the Hai Van Pass!
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As it happened the statue was closed for some reason so this was as close as we could get
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The ride back from the statue afforded some nice views of Da Nang
The guy in the hire shop helpfully printed off a map for us so we knew we were looking for a big bridge over a big river to get from Da Nang to the start of the Hai Van Pass. Considering how big the bridge was it took us a while of riding around Da Nang town centre to find it although I’d like to attribute this to how much attention I was paying to the road ahead! We stopped for a few snaps on the bridge as it was fairly quiet and loads of other people had stopped on the bridge too for a bit of a look.
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After that it was a straightforward ride through the rest of Da Nang to the start of the pass. I was hoping for some obvious sign to take a photo of the bike next to but there weren't any so I had to make do with an old pillbox and a last view over Da Nang.
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There is a tunnel that goes through the mountain that bypasses the pass entirely so I was quite surprised to see a lot of big lorries going past when I was taking some photos.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_7831_zps7b32bc7c.jpg
Perhaps the toll for the tunnel is exorbitant meaning the lorries would rather burn the extra diesel and crawl over the pass. We weren't sure but it was just another obstacle to bear in mind!
This is where the fun really started for me though. The road quickly turned into a twisty, flowing hill climb with fantastic views. I still had to pay close attention to the road however as there were loads of lorries crawling up the pass at a snail’s pace so there were lots of overtakes going on. We stopped for a quick photo on top of a rock next to the road overlooking Da Nang:
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_7839_zps5882030a.jpg
Then carried on to the top of the pass where we stopped for a drink and a look around a dilapidated military type installation. The pass has been an important part of Vietnamese history as it was a significant military strategic location and was considered a barrier between the North and South of the country. We took some time to wander around the buildings and take in the view.
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You can see the road down the other side of the pass in this photo
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I know BCF loves a puppy!
At this point the weather took a turn for the worse and the clouds came rolling in. The base looked pretty eerie in the clouds but we were keen to get going.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_7880_zps5978763c.jpg
As we descended onto the other side of the pass we managed to escape the worst of the clouds and had some relatively clear weather. The descent was great, very flowing but with some tight hairpins to keep me on my toes.
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As we neared the bottom of the pass we rode into the mother of all rain storms! I've never seen rain drops so big and visibility was severely reduced so we decided to take shelter (not that it helped!) under a tree at the side of the road.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/P1040088_zps8161a8de.jpg
It became clear fairly quickly that the rain wasn’t going to stop so we tucked our 50 cent ponchos in as best as we could and decided to press on.
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As we passed under the big bridge in the previous photo the road got a bit vague as there was some construction going on so we decided to take some shelter in a small shop and see if we could get some directions.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_8123_zpsc79b35c3.jpg
The shop that we stopped in must have not been used to westerners as they spoke barely any English at all so it took us a while to even relay where we were trying to go. Eventually we got across where we were aiming for and they drew us a very detailed map!
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While all this was going on a toddler appeared out of the shop and who I assume was the mother thought it was hilarious that he wanted to play with the westerners. The shop was very basic and had very little in terms of mod cons so I was very surprised to see her nip into the shop and come back out with an iPad to take photos of the kid with us!
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We finished our crisps (traditional prawn cocktail flavour) and started gearing up. Annoyingly my definitely legitimate $2 Oakleys snapped when I put them on which wasn't great as I’d have to rely on the terrible scratched visor for the remainder of the journey.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_8126_zps97e5a8fe.jpg
Luckily for us the owner of the shop also started gearing up and offered to show us the way to the right road for Hue. We followed him out in the pouring rain and once we got to the right junction he waved us on with a cheery smile despite just soaking himself just to show us where to go! We were very grateful for the help and we had our faith in human nature restored after encountering an awful lot of rude Asians at various other locations over the last few months.
From here the road got fairly straight and very wet. There were a few more smaller passes although I’d say they were more like hills than mountains (despite what our map said!) and the road seemed to get busier and filled with much bigger and heavier traffic than us. Coaches, lorries and minivans were everywhere!
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On this stretch of the journey I had my closest ever near miss on a bike. I was riding along a long straight bit of road with fairly good visibility despite the rain at a steady 60/70KPH and was approaching a junction on my left. As I approached the junction, at the last possible moment a moped rider from the other side of the road careered across into my lane leaving my nowhere to go. I braked as hard as I dared and aimed for the rear of his bike in the hope that he'd keep moving and we'd clear each other and somehow we managed to just miss each other by what seemed like millimetres! In near death situations like that I tend to just laugh them off (as the other option is to cry!) but Eileen wasn't too impressed with my whooping and cheering at cheating death and her grip remained vice like for the rest of the journey!
Eventually we reached the suburbs of Hue city as darkness fell. I was keen to get to our hostel before dark as I didn't fancy riding at night at all but all the faffing around with breaks and the having to take it easy in the rain meant we had no choice but to ride at night. I couldn't see much at all through the scratched visor and the rain wasn't letting up. By now we were both soaked as our ponchos were hardly designed for riding through monsoons and we were beginning to get cold. I opted to try and stay on the tail of a few moped riders ahead who pretty much led us straight into the heart of the city. Luckily for us the man at the hire shop had explained that the hotel was easy to find and true to his word we found it with relatively little fuss. We were glad to see our bags were waiting for us at the hotel and after a brief scan around we decided that we would stay in the same hotel for the night as it was cheap and convenient for our plans the next day.
And with that our journey on the bike was complete!
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We headed out for tea where I had another traditional cheese burger (what can I say, I like to try as many local delicacies as possible!) and some well earned beers.
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The rain didn't let up however and when we got back to our hotel we found that the road was flooded and under about a foot of water.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_8195_zps15e088b1.jpg
Luckily our hotel wasn't really affected (other than our wet feet) so we went up for an early night. The next day we took a look around the Citadel in Hue city which was very interesting despite the weather and began researching our options for further travel plans.
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v331/serenaur/IMG_8210_zpse971536e.jpg
Hue Citadel
Doing this leg of the journey by bike and not relying on buses and other public/tourist transport made us realise that in order for us to have a proper adventure we’d need to get about under our own steam so from here on in we were always looking out for more bike hire options. We still had another 3 months of travelling ahead of us at this point in the trip and little did we know what other motorcycle related treats lay in store for us...! Keep 'em peeled for a thread on our 5 day adventure motorcycling around the Mae Hong Son loop in Northern Thailand (although it might be a while as I've just moved from the UK to Berlin to live so I'm sort of a bit busy at the moment! (BCF Euro Meet 2014??)).
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Last edited by KLR600 on 21:48 - 24 Feb 2014; edited 1 time in total |
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arry
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KLR600
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raak
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Posted: 22:35 - 23 Feb 2014  Post subject: |
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fantastic write up.... 
most enjoyable..cheers 
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Shaft
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Posted: 23:21 - 23 Feb 2014  Post subject: Re: KLR Does The Hai Van Pass - Vietnam (Of Top Gear Fame) |
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I have no idea why, but whenever I see pictures of this statue, I find it incredibly eerie, almost malevolent.
Nice write up and it looks like a really interesting country, just a shame the pursuit of tourist dollars appears set to change it for the worse.
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sidewinder
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| Posted: 23:28 - 23 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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Excellent write up and pictures thank you
How did the little suzuki perform? |
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bladerunner
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| Posted: 00:50 - 24 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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Very different to the run to Aberystwyth in the snow a few years ago! The great write up brought to life with your usual excellent photography makes for a great read 
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| Posted: 01:44 - 24 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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Phenomenal photographs. I really enjoyed that.
Thanks for posting |
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Shreeve
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| Posted: 09:30 - 24 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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Nice read before work!
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Moxey
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| Posted: 11:12 - 24 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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Looks cool fella , would love to be able to ride through Nam someday.
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FrankGill
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KLR600
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| Posted: 21:37 - 24 Feb 2014 Post subject: Re: KLR Does The Hai Van Pass - Vietnam (Of Top Gear Fame) |
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Thanks all for general praise and kind words I had fun writing it up not to mention actually doing it!
| Shaft wrote: | I have no idea why, but whenever I see pictures of this statue, I find it incredibly eerie, almost malevolent.
Nice write up and it looks like a really interesting country, just a shame the pursuit of tourist dollars appears set to change it for the worse. |
There are loads of huge religious statues in out of the way places all over S.E Asia. I found it a bit creepy at times.
I think the trouble with what we saw was that it was the typical tourist trail of Vietnam. Hiring the bike cost $40 a day (not including petrol etc) but our open bus tickets from Saigon to Hanoi including 7 stops and being valid for a month was $42 each. We were on a bit of a budget as we were out there for almost 6 months and wanted to make the money last so hiring/buying a bike wasn't really a financially viable option for us. Obviously at that price the bus will only drop you off at the really popular destinations to make sure the buses are full so we didn't get to see much "off the beaten track" stuff. Saying that, had we actually just done the whole length under our own steam I've no doubt we'd of seen so much more of the country in terms of culture and people but it probably would have been all we'd have seen of Asia.
| sidewinder wrote: | How did the little suzuki perform? |
Erm, honestly? 
To be fair it was ok. It had heavy duty rear shocks on it for us fat westerners (compared to those tiny Asians!) and seeing as we were two up I wasn't expecting to be power wheelying everywhere. It was fine on the pass, it was pokey enough to have fun on the way up and then obviously it was gravity assisted on the way back down so that was fine too. It kept up with other traffic on the bigger roads ok and we didn't have any mechanical problems at all during the ride. Saying that, we did only ride it a total of 95 miles so I'd be a bit worried if something dramatic had gone wrong because of something I'd done. It was just about roomy enough for the both of us too. I wasn't really looking to go for any speed records or anything as the road conditions are so different over there to in the UK or the rest of Europe. You almost have to be at 110% of awareness over there instead of the usual 100% on familiar roads/territory so I was happy to just arrive in Hue without dying, especially considering the terrible weather in the second half of the day!
| HT wrote: | He even makes the burgers look exciting. |
They were delicious!
| Moxey wrote: | would love to be able to ride through Nam someday |
| stinkwheel wrote: | Good write up but needs more Minsk.
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Ha ha, good old Soviet engineering! When we arrived in Saigon there were quite a few adverts in various cafes/hostels/bars for people selling little 100/125/150's of various makes (usually Hondas). They were all around the $2-300 region and we were sorely tempted to go for it. We did have a massive backpack and smaller day pack each which would have been a bit of a nightmare to carry with us and obviously Eileen has just about no experience on bikes so it was a flat no from her for her own bike (totally understandable!). As I said above, with open bus tickets available for $42 it just depends on your budget really. Had we known we were only going to Vietnam then we might have bought an old jeep and a bike or something but seeing as we wanted to see a bit of S.E Asia we decided to just bus the majority of it.
I have just moved to Berlin (the old East bit) so if you are in need of some old GDR/USSR bike porn then let me know what I'm looking for and I can try and find it for you! I do know of an old GDR bike museum in Berlin that I have been to before that was pretty good.
| Diddylord wrote: | what camera did you use ?
how did you protect it from the wet weather ? |
 Canon 5Dmk2.
A carrier bag (yes I'm serious).
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instigator
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| Posted: 00:25 - 25 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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Top stuff - Love seeing your photos. You need to post more.
Can't believe you opted for burgers over Asian food though. I was never enthusiastic about food until I went to the far east! A burger would have been the last thing on my mind! |
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ms51ves3
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| Visitor Q |
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Visitor Q
$25 whore
Joined: 30 Apr 2004
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| Posted: 02:19 - 25 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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Great pics/writeup, lots of Nostalgia
When I went to the statue (accidentally) the road was all mud! 
https://scontent-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash2/t1/309610_10150838667455545_1611422222_n.jpg
Looks like better road now 
As for the Hai Van, it has great views, but I only found 3 or so kilometres exciting. I kept riding back up the north side and bombing down, but it was over in half an hour. And I fully murdered my front brake pads and couldn't get anymore until Hue.
Which made me sad.
Glad you had fun though. Definitely more interested to read the Mae Song loop stuff. Although no photo-bombing in that.
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China traffic/travel bike vid - When I make a sweeping statement, please add the word 'statistically' in to the sentence before you bitch...
From September 2014 to January/February 2015 I will not be using any English, nor reading any. As such, I won't be on here. PM at will, but I won't be checking/posting unless in emergencies. Certainly not for the first couple of months. Please berate me savagely if I break that rule... |
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| KLR600 |
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KLR600
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Visitor Q
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| Posted: 11:58 - 25 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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Nope, definitely took the Hai Van pass. But I'd also already done over a 1000km's of mountain roads previously, including the fabulous Dalat>Nha Trang road. Which is jizz crazy awesome. Just found it pretty short and a bit anti-climatic after all the hype. Conditions were pretty good for me too... Again, I can imagine it would be much better if you'd just got back in the saddle.
Sympathetic... Note that I murdered my brakes on it
And my photobombing in the first lot of pictures... I won't be in the Mae Hong ones. Or will I?!? 
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China traffic/travel bike vid - When I make a sweeping statement, please add the word 'statistically' in to the sentence before you bitch...
From September 2014 to January/February 2015 I will not be using any English, nor reading any. As such, I won't be on here. PM at will, but I won't be checking/posting unless in emergencies. Certainly not for the first couple of months. Please berate me savagely if I break that rule... |
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KLR600
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Visitor Q
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| Posted: 16:11 - 25 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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| KLR600 wrote: |
Oh right, I misunderstood sorry! Nah you won't be in the Mae Hong Son photos (unless you were secretly stalking us in the bushes). I got a bit of flak for all the selfies from our travels on facebook so thought that was what you were on about. |
I am bush-ninja 
And yes, you do have a few. As a happily (and recently) married couple it's no bad thing. To be honest I wish I was less stubbornly British about being in photos and actually appeared in more of mine. I resort to stealing other peoples to get shots of me (thanks very much for my current pic), but it's the people you meet that really make the travels worth doing.
My favourite random Vietnamese guy was the bike mechanic everyone took their bikes too, who found me all the parts I needed and then some, better quality than normal, and gave them to me for cost... all because I taught him some English.
I really wish I had his picture. Let alone a selfy with him and myself. I've just always been too worried about 'not being that guy' who asks everyone for pictures. Too worried about being 'cool'
I'm most impressed with the riding shots. Is that just Eileen snapping from round your waist?
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China traffic/travel bike vid - When I make a sweeping statement, please add the word 'statistically' in to the sentence before you bitch...
From September 2014 to January/February 2015 I will not be using any English, nor reading any. As such, I won't be on here. PM at will, but I won't be checking/posting unless in emergencies. Certainly not for the first couple of months. Please berate me savagely if I break that rule... |
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| Sabs |
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Sabs
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| Posted: 16:33 - 25 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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Great post, looks like it was a fantastic trip
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Theory in the bag, Mod 1 passed 28/3/2014, Mod 2 passed 9/4/2014 - Let loose
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KLR600
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| Posted: 20:04 - 25 Feb 2014 Post subject: |
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| Bonny wrote: | To be honest I wish I was less stubbornly British about being in photos and actually appeared in more of mine.
I really wish I had his picture. Let alone a selfy with him and myself. I've just always been too worried about 'not being that guy' who asks everyone for pictures. Too worried about being 'cool'
I'm most impressed with the riding shots. Is that just Eileen snapping from round your waist? |
I used to hate having my photo taken but after being around cameras so much and then taking photography up myself I realised that if I wanted to try new stuff I'd have to be my own model. I soon got over the fear of a load of glass in my face. At the end of the day you can't take yourself too seriously as what's the worse that can happen? People will laugh at a stupid photo? That photo I put on facebook the other day with the ridiculous moustache, top hat and suit in front of that big house was stupid but I don't care, it was pretty funny! I'd rather have the photo than not. Even on nights out when I'm massively drunk - assuming I haven't poo'd myself or been violently sick or whatever it's all good. People have seen me in worse states
Saying that though... I have realised over time that sometimes it's better to leave the camera in the bag and just look at stuff. We saw stuff in Asia that was so breathtakingly amazing and rummaging around for a camera in a bag then spending ages faffing around with camera settings would have totally ruined the moment. It's times like that you just commit stuff to memory. I've never been one for taking loads of random photos of everything. I remember this one guy in the Mekong Delta who was carrying a DSLR, a video camera, an iPad and an iPhone and he always had one of them on the go. At all times. Seriously. I wondered what he was going to do with all that media, it can't have been much good either as he was always busy making sure he always had everything to hand instead of actually concentrating on what he was shooting.
I'm pretty selective about who I take photos of as well. I know the type you mean who want to take a photo of every local that sells them a packet of cigarettes or something. As far as taking photos of people go they either have to be unusually interesting or someone I had some extended positive connection with. That motorbike repair guy in Vietnam probably would have been selfie worthy for me, it only takes 2 seconds and no one is going to think any less of you for it. You don't even have to show the photo to anyone if you don't want! I have roughly 5,000 photo from our travels and about 4,000 of those are just for myself/Eileen (no that kind of photo ).
The riding photos were helped by Eileen. Before I left for Asia I had managed to get it down pretty well on my own though it's made much easier using a fisheye lens which I didn't have in Asia.
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Now: '00 Kawasaki ZRX1100R - Past: '84 Yamaha DT125, '89 Kawasaki KLR600, '97 Yamaha XJ600N
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| -Ali- |
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-Ali-
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Old Thread Alert!
The last post was made 10 years, 63 days ago. Instead of replying here, would creating a new thread be more useful? |
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